


Winter Rose

by WendyNerd



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Aegon and Rhaegar are douchebags, Beauty and the beast retelling, Canon parallels, Elia and the kids live, F/M, Magic, Polygamy, Rhaegar Wins AU, Stark sister bonding, Starks are BAMFs, Unbeta'd, Winter, creepy targs, kind of a combination of a Rhaegar wins AU and the original tale, stark angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-10
Updated: 2017-12-08
Packaged: 2019-01-15 19:14:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 38,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12327129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WendyNerd/pseuds/WendyNerd
Summary: The Starks are raised by the legacy of their controversial Aunt Lyanna. A combination of magic, political rivalry, and plain old malice leave them at their most vulnerable AFTER winter ends. Hardened by the icy years she's survived with her family, Sansa Stark sets off to sacrifice her freedom and future to try and save the ones she loves.





	1. Curses

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so 'Princess Furball' prompted me to read "Deerskin", which prompted me to do a re-read of 'Beauty', and thus, we have this. Full circle. The first Chapter is a TON of build up, but it's supposed to be a sort of mash-up with canon and the OG tale. So we have the ruined family, the possibly salvaged fate, we have a comatose Stark, daughter making a sacrifice when a beast demands her, a hostage Stark, riches to rags, twists and turns, curses, allusions to Arya's fight with Joffrey at the Trident (complete with a lying Joffrey and an awful Cersei involved), a sister asking for things to be brought back, a father making a deal with his daughter, angry AF Oberyn, traditional Stark sister tensions (with better resolutions), and so on.

Even from her earliest years, Sansa knew that her family’s fortunes greatly rested with her Aunt Lyanna, for good and for ill.

Aunt Lyanna was the second of King Rhaegar’s wives, the second queen, the favored one. The favored one, they say, though that is primarily in the king’s eyes. When the king was a prince, he stole Aunt Lyanna away, entranced by her beauty, though he was already married to Princess Elia of Dorne. The “abduction” prompted his mad father to murder Sansa’s grandfather and uncle when they protested and try to kill Father as well. It prompted the failed venture known as Robert’s Rebellion, in which an alliance of families --- The Baratheons of Storm’s End, whose Lord Robert the rebellion was named for and was promised to Aunt Lyanna, the Arryns of the Vale, the Tullys of the Riverlands, Mother’s family, and their own House, the Starks of the North revolted against the Targaryens of the Iron Throne.

The Rebellion was crushed after Prince Rhaegar made a deal to usurp his father’s authority in order to gain the support of the rich and powerful Lannisters. The Arryns and Baratheons were completely wiped out, but Aunt Lyanna begged for the Starks and Tullys. Sansa’s uncle, Edmure Tully, and Sansa’s older brother, Robb, both heirs to the family titles, were taken as hostages. Control of the Riverlands, which historically rested with the Tullys, was shifted to House Whent of Harrenhal. The Starks maintained their status, for the sake of the Stark princess, who bore her prince a strong, healthy son during the war and went on to bear him three more children.

It is known that Elia, Rhaegar’s first wife, mother of his two eldest children, including his heir, Aegon, is beloved of the people. The Smallfolk sympathize with her. Indeed, all of Westeros, including Sansa’s own family, does. A sickly woman, she was rendered permanently barren by Aegon’s birth, which many say partly motivated Rhaegar to seek a second wife. But even those who most strongly clung to the belief that a woman’s use is childbearing do not look kindly upon how her husband humiliated and abandoned her. Even the worst cynics Sansa has heard have whispered that Rhaegar could have at least had the decency to be discreet in his courtship of Lyanna and set Elia aside honorably, with a proper living, rank, and honor once her womb was rendered useless. 

Queen Elia, Sansa has heard her whole life, is the soul of kindness and goodness. Beautiful and witty as she is gentle, not to mention wise. Since her husband took power through his regency and later, his ascension to the Iron Throne itself, she’s been a powerful and well-respected figure on her husband’s small council. 

And yet, it has always been known that King Rhaegar’s passions are reserved for Lyanna. Perhaps the rest of Westeros seeks to compensate the poor Dornish queen by giving her all of the love that Rhaegar denies her. She certainly repays it in kind.

Even in Winterfell, the childhood home of Queen Lyanna, Sansa never heard a hard word about Queen Elia. Though even here, she’s heard some about her Aunt. She was four when she first overheard a group of washerwomen refer to Lyanna as a black mark upon House Stark’s honor. The harlot who sparked a war by abandoning her family and responsibilities to run off with a married man. 

Not that these judgments were spoken too loud in the North. After all, their fortunes lay with the continued favor of both Lyanna and the king. It is only by her aunt’s grace that House Stark survives. But things need not be spoken aloud to be present.

For instance, Sansa knew, from a young age, that she was to some extent, judged based on Lyanna’s history. Mother employed the strictest Septa she could find to educate Sansa and her younger sister, Arya. Their upbringing was critical and closely observed, and it affected them differently. Not surprising, as the sisters themselves were as different as night and day.

Sansa perfected her curtsy at age three, never spoke out of turn, excelled in all the womanly arts in which she was trained: sewing, fashion, dancing, singing, drawing, poetry, etiquette, heraldry, entertaining, musicianship. Even as a small child, she was called beautiful, and when people said this, they said so with wide, mystified eyes that spoke of sincerity rather than the typical politeness with which people usually called children beautiful. She took after her mother, with her high cheekbones, large, round, deep blue eyes, wavy red hair, and delicate jawline. From her Stark side, she inherited height and bow-shaped lips. 

Septa Lorraine’s sharp perfectionism, harsh discipline, easy criticisms, and harsh eyes only made Sansa obsess more and more over the disciplines which she took to naturally. On the very rare occasions that she either missed a stitch or came close to it, she was stricken with white-hot fear of the fury it might inspire in her Septa. 

No matter how much she excelled in most everything she pursued, she lived by her rare failures and weaknesses, and it was these that Lorraine focussed on rather than Sansa’s accomplishments. By age eight, Sansa’s skill at embroidery had surpassed her Septa’s to such an extent that Lorraine herself convinced Mother to send away for a great seamstress to come and coach her further. Her handwriting was so lovely that Maester Luwin began enlisting her help with his own calligraphy, and he began teaching her foreign languages, as according to the man himself, there was nothing more to teach her about the common tongue.

And yet, Sansa’s life and mind were constantly alight with her struggles over numbers and figures. She couldn’t keep them in her head, and she knew more of her failures with equations than the equations themselves. When she managed to master the standard level of arithmetic for her age and level, she’d be immediately moved to the next and railed against for struggling to understand the next. 

Lorraine forgave nothing, however so slight. And that didn’t just apply to achievements. It leant itself to deportment as well. While the boys, Bran and Baby Rickon, were sitting by Old Nan’s chair listening to her tales, Sansa and Arya were made to stand straight as Septa Lorraine read from the Seven Pointed Star and made them memorize every passage. She especially stressed the lessons on chastity and obedience in women and the evils of licentiousness and boldness.

Arya, despite the mountain of strikes from Lorraine’s favorite birch rod, seemed to take it all as a joke. While Lorraine’s harsh discipline and standards drove Sansa into an obsessive pursuit of perfection, Arya took the opposite route.

Sansa’s sister, Father said, was much like Lyanna at her age --- an observation that often prompted dark, panicked looks in Mother, Lorraine, and many onlookers. Father said she even looked like Lyanna, though there were some who doubted that. It was true that both Arya and Lyanna had the Stark coloring, but Lyanna was a famous beauty and Arya…

Sansa had inherited all the best blessing from both sides of her family. Arya, less so. Her hair, which never behaved, and eyes were a lusterless brown. She inherited the long, extended jaw their father had, prompting other children to call her “Arya Horseface.” She was tiny: short and skinny as a reed, with crooked teeth and thin lips.

Arya possessed no natural inclination towards the feminine arts, but even if she did, Sansa suspects that her temperament would make her reject them in the face of Septa Lorraine’s tutelage all the same. Arya acted like a boy: constantly running, jumping, climbing trees, making mischief. She liked stories of adventure and war, loved to ride (indeed, atop a horse was the only time the younger sister attained any grace, as she had two left feet at their dancing lessons), and was constantly trying to sneak into Bran’s training sessions with Ser Rodrick. She would run about the castle and grounds, playing with the servant children, playing pranks, and always, always managing to return home with her hair a mess of knots, twigs, and tree sap no matter how harshly tied it was. 

The more Septa Lorraine punished, the more Arya misbehaved. Despite how often angry red marks would appear on Arya’s hands and legs, Sansa often found herself envying her little sister, who seemed to find joy in everything. 

There was mutual resentment fostered between the two growing up. Sansa was often held responsible for Arya’s mischief, regardless of her lack of fault. On top of that, no matter how much trouble Arya managed to make, everyone but Septa Lorraine always seemed to instantly forgive her, even adore her for it. It often seemed like whenever Arya managed to, say, put lizards inside the Septa’s bed, it was Sansa who was chastised for not stopping her, while Arya got half a stern look, some new chores, then a smile and a pat on the head. The only one who truly seemed to punish her was Septa Lorraine, who did strike Arya whenever Father or Jory wasn't called in and Mother wasn’t present.

Arya, meanwhile, resented Sansa for being the “proper” and “beautiful” one. She saw Sansa as a snob who wanted to change her, a ninny and a sheep. Seeing her older sister praised for all the things Arya was lambasted for failing at infuriated her.

Her friends growing up, her consolation, was Millie, her needlework tutor, who didn’t hesitate to teach her the patterns and stitches of all manner of “scandalous, foreign” designs, who spoke to Sansa with a gentle honesty and taught her with a delightful mix of mischief and patience. 

The other was not a person, but Lady. When Sansa was eleven, her father and brothers came upon a dead female direwolf and her still-living litter of pups. Direwolves had not been seen south of the Wall for centuries, but here were six. It was noted that the direwolf was the sigil of House Stark, and that of the litter, there were two female and four male. One of the males, the runt of the litter, was an albino. Father and his men took it as a sign. Thus, two of the male pups, including the albino, was sent to King’s Landing for Robb and their cousin, Prince Jon. The rest were dispersed to the younger Stark children. 

Sansa nursed Lady with a milk-soaked rag for months and fell in love. All of them did, really. It became known that one rarely, if ever, saw a Stark child without a wolf following behind them. Despite her usual aversion to mess and disorder, Sansa had Lady sleep in her bed with her and fed her scraps of food under the table during meals. Her wolf was the sweetest and prettiest of the litter, easily trained, always grooming and behaving herself. After a while, not even the other girls were afraid of Lady, because she seemed to grow in gentleness as well as size.

Everyone but Lady and Millie feared the girls becoming Lyanna. But while Arya provoked that fear through her behavior and choices, Sansa, it seemed, provoked it simply by looking the way she did. While she didn’t thirst for rebellion the way her sister did, she did feel constrained and trapped beneath the watchful trepidation and harsh control that she never earned. No matter how well she behaved, no matter what she did, she knew that all anyone cared about were her missteps and failures, both real and imagined. 

Thus, she acquired over the years a certain hatred for her queenly aunt. Lyanna was the one who ran off, who sparked a war. Now she was a queen in the famous court of King’s Landing, beloved of the famously handsome and gallant Silver King Rhaegar. The war, the humiliation, and cruelty that Queen Elia suffered, the deaths, all of that… What had she paid for that? For all her misdeeds? She was being served and worshipped in the biggest city in Westeros, the subject of her own modern, romantic legend. There were no beady-eyed septas having fits over a forgotten line of scripture for Lyanna.

Meanwhile, it was her family who bore the consequences of her actions. Grandfather and Uncle Brandon were dead. Father and Mother were “encouraged” to stay away from the court, and it was said that House Martell bear a seething grudge against the Starks for the hurt done Elia. And Sansa and Arya were the ones punished, truly, for a lack of virtue that they’d never shown, because of the precedent set by their aunt.

When Sansa was thirteen, it occurred to her that despite her status and looks, her parents were not yet entertaining any possible marriage suits. Even after her first flowering and a portrait Mother commissioned by a Myrish artist, there seemed to be little interest now that Sansa had reached maidenhood. She inquired as to why, first from her mother and Septa, who went white and tight-lipped. Then from Millie, her needlework tutor, from whom she could always rely upon for kind but candid words.

“People are afraid to approach you. The Martells have a strong influence at court, and everyone knows they hate the Starks, and despite your aunt’s intercessions, it’s known that the Targaryens still haven’t completely forgiven the Starks or the Tullys for the rebellion, and you’re both. But even more, there are assumptions people have about the women of your family. That you would be disobedient, scandalous, and wanton like your Aunt Lyanna. Your Aunt had been promised to the Lord of Storm’s End for years, but jilted him to run off with the married prince. So people are hesitant.”

Millie let Sansa cry into her shoulder and stroked her hair after telling her this. Sansa felt doomed. She’d have to marry some hedge knight and stay locked away in the gloomy North forever, all because of Lyanna. All her work, all her struggle, all her obedience would be for nothing. None of it, none of what she did mattered. She didn’t matter. She was nothing.

And on top of it all, her whole family had to keep pandering to this woman, so that her favor, and, by extent, the king’s, stayed strong.

That night, Sansa found herself wishing terrible things upon her wayward aunt. That for once, the woman would pay.

To her horror, that wish comes true. 

There’d been rumors for years that while Queen Elia was beyond reproach, that her family, particularly her brother Oberyn and his infamous bastard daughters, the Sand Snakes, were another story. Even in the North, tales reached them of magic and alchemy performed by the famous Red Viper of Dorne and his brood. Oberyn Martell was famously attached to his sister, violently protective of her and her children. It was said even the king himself feared his good-brother.

They said that while relations between Lyanna’s children and Elia and her daughter Rhaenys were at least cordial, that Aegon, the Crown Prince, has never forgiven his step-mother or half-siblings for the insult done his mother. That he was close with his dangerous uncle and bastard cousins who, it was said, cast protective magic over Elia and her children.

Up in the North, everyone always dismissed all this as absurd, albeit entertaining nonsense. Just stories to liven up a dull evening. 

But just a few days after Sansa sobs on Millie’s shoulder about her limited prospects…. 

Numerous envoys from the Red Keep arrive at Winterfell, all claiming to have personally witnessed it, all saying something slightly different. 

There’d been an incident, an altercation between Rhaegar’s two eldest sons. One damaging enough for Father and Mother to call the whole court together to hear the tale. 

The one at fault varied upon who reported it. Some claim it was Jon, Lyanna’s eldest, while others insist it was Aegon. They all agree that Robb and both of the wolves were involved, with some going further and laying the blame on them. Everyone agreed that the queens had tried to get between their two sons, and that at some point two of the Sand Snakes rushed in.

There is a small crowd of voices of men arguing with one another about what had really happened and who had actually been there, until, furious, Father shouted for silence.

One of the men who had been assigned to serve Robb, Mikken, is deemed the most cogent and reliable and is brought forward.

“Regardless of who is to blame, the results are the same,” Mikken reports in a sullen voice, “Utter disaster. The only blessing is that your son was spared serious injury, but he’s still been locked away in a cell. Aegon and the Sand Snakes took blows from the wolves that shall scar them forever. Queen Elia, already a delicate woman, was at some point thrown and broke three bones. But… I’m afraid… It’s your relations who got it worst.”

Mikken’s green eyes fill with tears. “My Lord, I am so sorry, but your sister, Queen Lyanna, was hit with some sort of spell. She is dead.”

The whole hall gasps. Father goes white and his mouth hangs open. Some, mostly those who remember the queen as a girl, begins to sob. Sansa begins gasping for breath. No. No.

There’s a long period of weeping and gasping. Mother looks at Sansa with concern. Septa Lorraine pulls smelling salts from her robes. Sansa struggles to control her breathing.

Finally, Father speaks. “How did she suffer?”

“---She didn’t, thank the gods!” Mikken says quickly, “Whatever the spell was, it seems it was aimed at one of the wolves. It hit her heart and killed her instantly. She knew no pain, my lord, I promise.”

“She was spared more than a painful death,” one of the other envoy's grumbles.

Father’s eyes fix upon the other man. “What do you mean? Jon, is he---?”

“---He’s still alive, My Lord,” Mikken assures him. But his outspoken companion scoffs.

“If you can call that living.”

All eyes are on the new speaker now. Father demands an explanation.

The man, middle-aged, small, and scruffy, licks his lips. “Your nephew was cursed, Lord Stark, and most horribly. It seems that those rumors of protective magic over Queen Elia and her children are true. Your sister was hit first, see. She dropped dead, and when Prince Jon saw that, he completely lost control and he and his wolf attacked Prince Aegon. He and the wolf got a couple of blows in, but they were blown back. They sort of landed in a pile, and well… it’s hard to describe. Your nephew and his wolf, they sort of… melded.”

There are more gasps.

“Explain,” Mother insists. The knight shrugs.

“I’m not so sure how to. But all of a sudden, that wolf of his seemed to… melt, sort of. Right onto the prince. There was this strange hum in the air, this flash and, well, next thing we know, in the prince’s place is this hideous man-beast with red eyes and white hair.”

Sansa’s feels tears burst from her eyes. She never meant for Jon to get hurt. 

“Prince Ben and the princesses Lyarra and Danny, they were found transformed into wolves.”

Everyone cries out in horror. Sansa collapses, sobbing, into Lady’s pelt. It’s all her fault. All her fault.

“Please! My lords! My ladies!” Mikken speaks up again, “Please know, the princesses and young prince were changed back almost at once! The King ordered it of Obara and Nymeria!”

There are some sighs of relief, but Sansa calls out, “What about Jon?”

Mikken turns red and looks at the floor. “The… The king ordered Jon be changed back as well, but the Sand Snakes and even their father insisted that it was undoable. Even Queen Elia begged on the prince’s behalf. But all Prince Oberyn said he could do was create a way for the spell to be broken through other means.”

"What other means?"

"He claimed not to know."

There's a collective groan throughout the Hall.

“What of my son, Mikken?” Father cries, “What of Robb?”

“I’m afraid, my lord, that things are difficult. The queens only arrived once the fight started, and Queen Elia only witnessed so much through it all. It’s a case of people saying different things. Aegon and his friends insist that your son and Prince Jon attacked him with the wolves. Prince Jon, in his current form, can barely speak coherently. Lord Robb says that the altercation was started by Prince Aegon. That the crown prince made threats and when Jon and Robb warned him to cease them, that the prince and his men took that as an excuse to attack them. Joffrey Connington and Prince Viserys swear by Aegon’s story. Garlan Tyrell backs up Robb, but the Martells are claiming that he’s only doing so because the Tyrells hate them for the incident that crippled Garlan’s brother Willas years ago. Ser Harrold Hardyng and Ser Balon Swann say both sides were trading threats and that it was impossible to tell who threw the first punch. But the Martells are furious, and the Lannisters have gotten involved.”

Father gapes. “What have the Lannisters got to do with this?!”

“Lady Cersei Connington, Lord Joffrey’s mother, is Lord Tywin’s daughter,” Mikken reminds them, “She is furious that any doubt be laid at Aegon’s story since her son swore by it, and she says that to argue is to doubt the honor of her son, her House, and two royal princes. Apparently, Lord Joffrey sustained some injuries as well, and it’s been reported that she’s promised a hundred gold dragon reward for the wolves’ pelts --- Grey Wind’s, and Prince Jon’s. Her twin brother, Ser Jaime, is on the Kingsguard, and apparently had to be stopped from attacking your nephew on his sister’s command. The king is pressured, My Lord. So your son remains in bondage.”

Father ranted and raved, but nothing could be done. Word came that Casterly Rock was ready to strike if the Stark “threatened” the crown prince. 

And, once again, House Stark suffered. 

Poor Jon was sent away to some secluded place to live away from regular society. Poor Grey Wind was executed, and his bones were delivered to Winterfell. Robb remained in captivity. 

Queen Elia’s injuries were worse than originally thought, and she found herself permanently confined to a wheeled chair that her brother, Prince Doran, who himself suffered from gout, provided. Aegon acquired a lasting scar over his left eye, visible enough for all the small folk to see what those evil wolf people had done to their beloved Elia’s dear son. 

The Starks’ fortunes suffered considerably. Other Houses were more afraid of associating with them than ever. Prince Ben and the princesses were still very young, and with Jon disfigured and in exile and Lyanna dead, advocates for their family disappeared at court. It was reported that King Rhaegar was left despondent and half-mad at the loss of his favorite wife and son, and so Aegon and his uncle Viserys began asserting more and more control over the crown. They used this to impose harsh penalties upon the North. With Robb in the dungeons and Lyanna’s youngest in the Red Keep, Father was compelled to pay.

Winter soon arrived, and with it came the desperation, fear, struggle, and scarcity. Sansa, who had been provided for her whole life, soon learned true gloom. She knew deprivation and hunger.

Everything was tightly rationed during the winter, including food. As the daughter of a lord, she got a better helping than most of the bread, turnips, salted meats, and potatoes. But she found that the only thing worse than the cold was the sight of so many hungry faces, particularly those of children. Soon enough, Sansa went from sneaking table scraps into her wolf’s mouth to sneaking table scraps into the folds of her dresses, which she’d then take out to the courtyard and give out. 

Arya proposed to their siblings that they use their wolves to hunt, and thus, the Stark children began providing more meat for the larders. They had to be careful, though, not to over-hunt and to preserve the supply, so there was only so much they could bring home. Sansa stopped exploring scandalous foreign patterns with Millie and instead the two of them started a sewing circle devoted to repurposing every spare bit of cloth to make new clothing and blankets. Sansa shredded all her silks before long to serve as bandages. She began dressing like one of her serving women. It took months for her soft skin to get used to the rough wools.

As years went by, the distinctions between lords, ladies, and smallfolk seemed to melt away more and more. Sansa learned to walk in snowshoes, cultivate greenery, and even to make and maintain glass for the glass gardens. Sleds were built for the wolves, ones made to ride through or over the massive snow drifts. 

Once, she’d cursed her aunt for ruining her chances of marrying a high lord. Now, she and Arya were driving a sled from the Wolfswood carrying lumber for the castle fireplaces. 

Strangely enough, it wasn’t all horrible. With so much struggle and devastation, no one, including Mother and Father, had much patience for Septa Lorraine and her absurd approach to education anymore. After all, what did it matter if Arya couldn’t perfect a cross-stitch when half the roofs in Wintertown were collapsing from the weight of the snow? She ranted and raved about the “scandal” of letting the ladies ride out on their own, delivering things to strange, common people, even sometimes wearing breeches.

“My Lord, My Lady, with all due respect, you are just asking for your girls to be seduced into the sinful, violating lifestyle that doomed Lady Lyanna!”

The morning after she made this declaration, she was spirited out of the castle to White Harbor, never to be heard from again.

With the absence of their domineering tutor and the introduction of shared goals and duties, the two sisters found their old animosity withered away faster than the leaves. Lady and Nymeria, Arya’s wolf, were both excellent mushers. Nymeria provided the drive and quick instincts, Lady provided the discipline and direction, so the two found themselves driving together often. They were better, more disciplined hunters than their brothers, who rarely showed restraint with either their kills or their wolves, so the new hunting duties mostly fell to them. Arya still loathed to sew, and Sansa still loathed to fight, but both took up other crafts which brought them together. While Sansa learned glass-working, Arya took up blacksmithing, two pursuits which often intersected. Their new bond was solidified when the two built an entirely new glass garden together, with Arya providing the frames, and Sansa providing the panes. 

The night they finished their triumphant new project, they remained behind while the other workers retired. The new garden was empty but for a couple of flowerbed tables and equipment, and the two girls merely rested against their wolves and spoke for a while, with Sansa excitedly outlining her plans for the new crops, and Arya already coming up with schematics for the next garden they’d mastermind. At one point, Sansa voiced a desire that they didn’t have to return to the castle for dinner and bed, prompting her sister to excuse herself to use the privy. A quarter hour later, Arya returned with a full dinner ration from the kitchens and two blankets. 

Some years along, tragedy strikes and Mother is caught in a snow collapse in Wintertown. She is knocked into a sleep that seems neverending, and her fever lasts long enough for the Maesters to order a casket prepared. The whole court holds vigil. 

Her fever breaks, thank the gods, but she still doesn’t wake. They all sit by her bedside, but Arya and Sansa are called away to deliver goods, and Rickon can barely handle more than an hour before losing it. So Bran becomes Mother's near constant companion. 

Years pass, and she starts showing some signs of consciousness. Sometimes she opens her eyes or murmurs a few words. But she is out of her wits. She asks to see Robb. Begs to see him.

Sansa takes her mother’s duties on herself, desperate to keep them all going. Father spends his nights lying beside his wife, his days with either Maester Luwin or with Sansa. She tries to assist him with the books, the governance of the North, as Mother had. But she knows she falls short. Mother was good with figures.

There are many nights when all four of them, including Bran and Baby Rickon, gathered into Sansa’s chambers (the second warmest in the castle, after Mother’s) and piled all their blankets, pillows, and wolves together into a mass makeshift bed/fort and spent the night cuddling up.

_ This is a part of winter no one ever speaks of,  _ Sansa reflects one night as she strokes a sleeping Rickon’s curls. 

She thinks she’s alone in being awake --- Sansa rarely sleeps. She has nightmares of Lyanna, of Red Vipers, of Robb wasting away in a cell, of dragon fire, of poor, transformed cousin Jon. On a certain level, she knows it’s not all her fault --- perhaps none of it is. But she still feels it, in her bones. Lyanna Stark haunts her. Haunts all of Winterfell.

“Sansa!”

“Bran, you should be sleeping!” Sansa whispers, startled. She sees a vague outline in the darkness and hears a shifting of blankets as her brother defies her and shifts onto his side.

“I can’t. I keep thinking about Robb. I miss him.”

Sansa’s breath catches. Her siblings often discuss Robb, Jon, and their other cousins in the South, but she can never bring herself to join in. They already haunt her nightmares, she can’t bear to think of them anymore.

“You’ve never even met Robb,” Sansa points out, hating how callous she sounds, “How can you miss him?”

“I see him in my dreams,” Bran tells her, “He’s tall and muscular and has blue eyes and auburn hair, like us. He looks like you if you were a man. He has a beard, but it’s a couple shades lighter than the hair on his head. He still writes letters to us, you know. But they stopped sending them after he was put in the cells. Before then, he was happy. He and Jon were like brothers. Good thing, too, because Jon’s brother wasn’t very nice. But Robb and Jon were always together. They were like our wolves, only they had their own wolves as well. Now Robb is sad. He used to ride and hawk and practice all the time, but now he reads a lot. I think he’s trying to break Jon’s curse.”

“Is… Is that so?” Sansa asks, voice catching. Tears well at the corners of her eyes.

“I’m sorry, Sansa, I know you don’t like talking about this,” her brother says, “But you know, it’s not your fault.”

Sansa’s whole body stiffens. “W-What?”

“I know you think what happened to them is your fault, but it isn’t.”

“How do you know I think that?” She tries to laugh it off, but she can’t.

“I see it, in my dreams. I see your dreams sometimes. You dream of Lyanna blaming you for it because you didn’t like her. But it’s not like that, Sansa. Lots of people didn’t like Aunt Lyanna. Lots of people wanted bad things to happen to her. But that doesn’t mean that it caused anything. No one, if they knew, would blame you.”

“Yes,” she stammers, “Yes, of course. Thank you, Bran.”

She spends the rest of the night wide awake, not haunted by Lyanna, but pondering her brother’s strange insights.

At long last, when she nears her twentieth Name Day, winter begins to melt away, and the Citadel sends raven announcing spring. Everyone, from their burliest guards to their tiniest children, weeps from joy at the arrival of warmth again. More and more news, much of it halted by the weather, comes from the south. King Rhaegar has regained some of his senses and weakened the control of his son and brother. He sends carts full of grain, steel, fabric, and vegetables and informs House Stark that their debts are alleviated. 

He also sends some silks, a man, and an odd request. “His Grace desires a portrait of your daughters, the ladies Sansa and Arya.” The slightly-accented man announces in the middle of their courtyard.

The request utterly stuns them all. Even with spring, there is so much to do, who has time to sit for a portrait? 

“For what purpose?” Father asks, fists tightening, lines on his prematurely-aged face growing deeper. 

“Both damsels of a proper age and word of their kindness and goodness have reached the South. Their beauty has also been praised to the king, and he wishes that after so many years of struggle, that they might be introduced to proper, noble society.”

“UGH!” Arya bellows this, wrinkling her nose. “Why should we want to be displayed for the man who holds our brother captive?!”

“Arya!” Sansa feels an old embarrassment she thought she’d left behind return. Her sister’s manners were amusing and appropriate for winter winds. But if word got back to the king, and he was offended, he could hurt Robb.

“Quiet, Girl,” Father chastises, “That being said, Ser---?”

“Arnald Flowers, of Oldtown, at your service,” the man says, doffing his cap.

“Ser Arnald, my Arya does bring up a good point. The crown has taken much from our family and left us abandoned through this winter, and they hold my son and heir captive. You should understand why we are hesitant to offer tokens, even the likenesses of our children. The South is an unsafe place for Starks, and I have no interest in releasing something that might draw them there. Please understand, Ser, but my daughters are my greatest treasures. I understand this may put you in a difficult position, but I am willing to send you back to the Red Keep with a letter of my own to explain the situation and relieve you of the blame.”

“The King was very persistent, My Lord,” Ser Arnald says, face falling. 

“Kings tend to be. He is rather persistently holding my son captive.”

The thought of Robb makes Sansa panic. She steps close to her father and whispers in his ear, asking to have a brief, private discussion. Exhausted, Father beckons her to a corner.

“Father, do we really want to anger the king? He has Robb, and he has only just started showing concern for us again.”

“He’s a weak man who let his filthy son and brother take over and was happy to neglect us once Lyanna was gone. If he had any concern, it would be Robb arriving here, not some artist. All Rhaegar wants is to take more from us. He wants to get a look at Lyanna’s nieces and select a replacement in that hateful court of his. We send those portraits, it’ll just inflame Lyanna’s enemies more. They’ll say we’re trying to ensnare the king. Arya looks just like Lyanna, for pity’s sake. I am not subjecting either of you to that poisonous place!”

“Whether we send a portrait or not, that doesn’t help us. If Rhaegar is determined to take us, he will, portrait or no portrait. If we make him happy, we’re at least in a better position to protect ourselves and keep Robb safe. Father… It’s all Mother wants, all she asks for, to see him again.”

Both of them are blinking back tears. 

“We’ve already lost one boy, you think she’ll hold on if I sacrifice both her girls as well?”

Sansa bites her lip. “Fine, then, don’t. We compromise.”

“How so?”

She explains.

“Absolutely not!” Ned Stark declares, “You think I will let you---”

“---How exactly do you intend to stop me?” Sansa demands, “The painter is here, and the king is insisting. What are you going to do, lock me up in a tower?”

Father steps back. “Gods, you really have become your mother.”

She knows she’s won, and they both go to the painter.

“We are willing to strike a bargain, Ser,” Father says, “You are permitted to paint my elder daughter, Sansa, and bring her likeness back to King Rhaegar. If he wishes to see what Arya looks like, however, he must agree to deliver my son back to me, safe and sound.”

“The king will not----”

“---This is all I’m willing to offer.”

The painter gives up and the sitting is arranged.

When Sansa slips into the crisp, aqua satin that the king has sent for the portrait, it’s less like donning a new dress and more like revisiting an old life. The gown is trimmed in ivory embroidered with gold, and the bodice is studded with seed pearls. After over five years of rough wools, Sansa feels like she’s barely wearing anything at all. Had she ever dressed so fine? It seems like a child’s fantasy more than her reality.

She wears her hair loose and crowns herself with Winter roses, hoping the king will like it. If she pleases him enough, perhaps he will forgive the Starks their resistance. 

The thought occurs to her, however, that she did not want to please Rhaegar too much, so she insists Lady join her in the portrait as well, to communicate some threat.

If Ser Arnold minds, he shows no sign. During their first sitting, Sansa apologizes for any hardship their gambit might cause him. 

“It’s worth it to capture such a beautiful subject. If I do half my job, then the king shall be so enchanted that he doesn’t mind at all.”

“You’re a flatterer, Ser Arnold,” Sansa says with a coy smile.

“But I mean it, My Lady. I’ve painted many of the great ladies of Westeros, including both of the queens. You’re far lovelier than them all.”

_ I am sure you’ve said that to each great lady you’ve painted. _ But her curiosity dulls her tongue. She shifts. “You knew my Aunt Lyanna? What was she like?”

“Sharp and disinclined to be manipulated, much like yourself, but far less patient and willing to sit still. A lovely subject to gaze upon, a trial to actually paint.”

“My sister thinks I’m stupid.”

“All siblings say such things to one another,” Ser Arnald says off-handedly, “But word is that you’ve been quite resourceful during this winter. They would not say such things of a fool.”

Whether it’s a passion for the project or a passion to leave the still-frigid North, Ser Arnald works tirelessly, endlessly, and finishes within a fortnight. When it is presented, Father demands he change it.

“It’s a wonderful likeness,” Sansa protests, gazing in awe at the image on the canvas. Is that really her? Perhaps she’s looking at it with the bias of her own vanity.

“It looks exactly like her,” Arya remarks, curing Sansa of that worry. If the painting flattered her, Arya would say so.

“Exactly! Make her eyes smaller, her hair duller, her lips thinner!” Father cries. “If Rhaegar sees this, he’ll steal her away for sure!”

Ser Arnald sighs and promises to give the piece some “touch-ups” during his journey back to the South, and warns that the king will not want to be kept waiting much longer. He bids Sansa a kind good-bye.

“I’m sure I’ll be seeing you again at court very soon,” he says with a wink, completely misreading the room.

Farewells are otherwise said with relief. 

After the portrait is sent, the tension at court is palpable. The Stark sleepovers in Sansa’s chambers become a near-nightly event. Father learns of them, and instead of reprimanding his children, he instead insists that they start having them in Mother’s rooms and that he be allowed to join them.

The first wildflowers have started to bloom when word from the palace arrives. The Herald stands in the middle of the Great Hall and looks thoroughly apologetic when he declares that King Rhaegar, First of His Name, takes great umbrage at the Starks’ behavior.

“For failing to grant his one request, first of all, and only sending the image of one daughter. For issuing demands for completion of this enterprise, second of all. And third of all, for hiding such a great beauty away from his court for so many years.” The last sentence is declared with a hopeful chuckle, which goes unreturned. The herald’s face falls and he looks at the parchment again. 

“Despite this, King Rhaegar is willing to consider your request of returning Lord Robb Stark, heir to Winterfell, to his family, but not on the conditions proposed. Rather, he’d like to make an exchange of Lord Robb for Lady Sansa. If you are willing, no portrait of Lady Arya will be required. The king vows to treat Lady Sansa as if she were his own, she shall know every comfort and kindness and honor. Her reputation, birth, and beauty have convinced the king that she is an ideal match for his son, Prince Aegon.”

A collective gasp echoes throughout the hall. Sansa begins to feel rather faint, sinking back in her seat. 

“NO!” 

It’s not just Father who declares this, not just Arya, or Sansa, Bran, or Rickon, but the whole court is united in their absolute refusal. Aegon, who plotted against his brother and Lyanna for years? Who ruined their lives? Who took advantage of his father’s grief with his odious uncle to reign tyrannical over Westeros? If there’d been any doubt as to who was at fault for that terrible fight that killed Lyanna, Aegon’s conduct as king over the past several years annihilated it.

Father and Arya both go into rants about all the reasons why they’d never, under any circumstances, surrender Sansa to be Aegon’s bride. Sansa can barely speak from terror. Robb was still in Rhaegar’s clutches. They’ve already denied the man once. How will the king react to this rejection? Will he send them Robb’s head in a box?

They don’t have a chance to find out, exactly. Two days after the herald arrives, so do ravens carrying black parchment. King Rhaegar, First of His Name, is dead. Long Live King Aegon VI.

Another message comes from the new king, who informs them that the offer still stands and that King Aegon eagerly awaits meeting his beautiful bride and “uniting our Houses after so many years of strife.”

Father sends his flat refusal before Sansa even has a chance to discuss it with him.

Aegon responds by sending them a package with one of Robb’s fingers.

_ Starks, _

_ I have tried to extend the olive branch to you by showing your daughter the greatest honor that can be granted a woman of this kingdom. You have spurned me and my kindness. For this, you must pay. Send your daughter to me, Lord Stark. Do not worry, she shall not be queen. Send her to me, and maybe the next piece of your son that I send you won’t be his head. _

Sansa weeps at her mother’s bedside.

“Robb…. Please… I just want my baby boy…” Catelyn Tully cries out, half-mad, open eyes unseeing.

Perhaps Father decides he will lock Sansa in a tower, but he doesn’t have the chance to. She dons her cloak, hitches Lady to her sled, and escapes in the middle of the night, heading South. 

She’s halfway to The Neck when she realizes that she has absolutely no plan. How does she intend to rescue Robb properly once she arrives? What’s to stop Aegon from murdering her brother right in front of her? What if Robb is dead already?

Her doubts are overwhelming enough to halt her journey once she reaches the Moat Cailin Inn. She stays there long enough for Arya to appear one morning, looking furious.

“How did you---?”

“----How many journeys have we gone on together by now?” Her sister snaps, striding into Sansa’s room and sitting on the edge of the bed. “You think I couldn’t track you? Nymeria was always faster than your Lady.”

“I’m not coming home,” Sansa insists, “Even if I don’t go to the Red Keep, better I am lost forever than---”

“---Would you shut up? Of course, you’re going to the Red Keep! That’s not why I’m here!”

“Father didn’t send you?”

“Of course he did, but when have I ever done what I’m told. Now get up and come downstairs.”

Sansa tugs on her kirtle and follows her sister, who leads her to the barn. To Sansa’s shock, she finds not just Lady and Nymeria, but Summer and Shaggydog as well.

“Father said to use all the wolves to drag you back here. I think they’re of better use escorting you to King’s Landing and protecting you from our new mad king.” Arya looks into Sansa’s eyes. “Bran will be looking out for you. Bring our brother back. And... if possible... Lyanna's bones, too.”

Overcome, Sansa bursts into tears and sweeps her sister up in a mad embrace, peppering Arya’s face with kisses.

“UGH! GERROFF!! I WILL CUT YOUR BLOODY LIPS OFF!”

But Arya weeps a little too during their final goodbye, claiming it’s the plants causing her eyes to tear up.


	2. Sentence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sansa makes a couple of journeys. One to meet a beast, one to meet a dweeb.

People of King’s Landing are not used to dog sleds, but they are clever enough to make way for four enormous direwolves. She receives dirty, terrified looks that make her stomach sink a little lower with each one she passes. The city is packed with visitors, flocking to the new king’s coronation. But the roads clear for direwolves.

She makes it to the North gate, practiced statements declaring her identity at the tip of her tongue. But the palace gates part as easily for her as the crowds have, and when she enters and removes her hood, numerous stable hands rush forward to assist her. 

A guard comes forward. “Welcome, Lady Sansa, your arrival has been greatly anticipated.”

“You know who I am?” Father certainly wouldn’t have sent word of her coming, and surely they would expect a lady of a great House to be accompanied by a proper retinue, not four giant animals.

“Of course! Your face is known throughout the court, and the king has prepared special chambers for you. I am Ser Erryk, at your service.”

“By special chambers, do you mean a cell?”

Ser Erryk appears astonished. “Of course not! You are being accommodated in the Maidenvault.”

“Ah, so a very pretty cell, then.” Sansa frowns. “I wish to see my brother.”

To her surprise, Ser Erryk nods. “Yes, the king anticipated that. Lord Robb shall be brought to you once you’re unpacked.”

“I didn’t bring much. I didn’t come here for a social visit. When may I speak to the king?”

“As soon as you are dressed and ready to be presented to court, you shall be.”

“I have no finery suitable for court, Ser.”

His gaze falters. “I see. Well, why don’t we just stall your wolves and see if---” 

“---No, the wolves stay with me at all times,” Sansa says firmly, “If that is not permitted in the Maidenvault, I am more than willing to camp in the kennels. 

She has no idea what is happening, but she hides her bewilderment and clings to her demands. The wolves stay with her. She sees her brother. She sees the king. She demands Robb’s release. She negotiates with no one but the king himself.

“Very well.” Ser Erryk already looks exhausted. Reluctantly, he leads her into the Red Keep.

Were this any other occasion, Sansa would be taking the opportunity to examine everything and everyone. The history this palace contains is unparalleled. But she merely observes to keep on her guard, and suppresses her scholarly inclinations. The palace bustles, and she is stared at, though with far less hostile expressions than those of the city folk. Mostly, the lords, ladies, knights, and servants gaze at her with an invested curiosity, tinged with admiration. Somehow, she finds it even less comfortable than the glares.

She’s shown to grand chambers overlooking the Maidenvault garden, but it is not the opulence that catches her attention. No, it is the two people who enter the room from the balcony; a man pushing a woman in a wheeled chair.

Sansa instinctively reaches for Lady’s head and threads her fingers through the direwolf’s fur. Is this Aegon’s game? Did he intend to trick her into thinking it was safe, then feed her to his family?

The famed Red Viper of Dorne has a snake’s stare and dark hair that forms a widow’s peak. The Dowager queen, in contrast, is a small thing, still girlishly pretty despite the streak of grey in her hair, and a sweet smile. If Oberyn has the eyes of a snake, Elia has the eyes of a puppy.

But Sansa stays on her guard, though instinctively, she curtseys. “Your Grace, Prince Oberyn.”

“Ah, so a woman can curtsy in breeches!” Oberyn exclaims, “I hope nobody tells Obara.”

Sansa bristles at the mention of Obara Sand. “Do you have need of me?”

“Don’t be so hostile, Dear,” Elia says, wheeling herself closer. She pats Summer’s head, and the wolves part for her. The queen looks up at her. “It’s true that your aunt was far from my favorite person, but I never bore any animosity towards her relations. You may ask Ben, Danny, and Lyarra if you don’t believe me.” Elia sighs. “You don’t look much like her at all, but just like your portrait. The mouth is the same, and the way you hold yourself is somewhat similar, but no, you look like your mother. I met her, you know, at that fateful tourney at Harrenhal. The tournament where all this began.” 

She sighs again. “Gods, if only it would end! I admire you, Darling. You are brave for coming here. But you have fewer enemies than you imagine. I have been pushing for your brother’s release for years. And, believe it or not, I am on your side now.”

“What about him?” Sansa demands, nodding towards Oberyn. “His daughters killed my aunt and cursed my cousins.”

“Lyanna’s death was an accident,” Oberyn insists, eyes glinting, “There were two enormous wolves pouncing upon my nephew. Obara went too far with the younger ones, I admit it. But what happened to Jon was the result of a spell we cast twenty years ago that was only ever meant to protect my sister and her children. Something went wrong, I admit it, but we never intended anything like this. We were merely protecting our family, as we have ever since Rhaegar abandoned Elia and her children to the mercy of his Mad Father. It was little different than you Starks and your wolves.”

“Wolves are animals, and they don’t curse people!”

“Magic is an animal, and it does.” Oberyn shrugs. “Different animals for different people.”

“And I suppose you think it was Jon and Lyanna’s fault?” Sansa demands. “That they attacked your poor, defenseless nephew unprovoked?”

“Of course not. We knew Aegon was lying the moment Joffrey Connington claimed he was telling the truth,” Elia responds patiently, “That boy is evil incarnate, and he and Viserys have been digging their hooks into my son for years. Robb was telling the truth, I’m sure of it. But both he and Jon were stupid. They’d known for years about the protective spells around my children and I, and that Aegon has been trying to provoke them into attacking him for just as long. They should have known better. But they were young men, not in control of their emotions. And they certainly don’t deserve what befell them any more than you deserve what Aegon has in store for you.” 

Sansa takes a deep breath. “Ah, yes, so you know then. Tell me, does he intend to rape me himself, or have one of his cronies do it for him?”

Elia flinches, and Sansa regrets her harshness.

“Neither, though he does intend something similarly sick,” Oberyn informs her, “He wishes to humiliate you for the rest of your life.”

“Oh? So it’s to be disfigurement, then?”

“Not quite,” Elia says grimly, “You may have noticed, Lady Sansa, that you’ve been widely recognized since you arrived in King’s Landing.”

“Yes.” Sansa’s breath catches. “I assume he’s spread copies of my portrait, but why?”

“So everyone knows who you are, so that---” 

They are interrupted, however, by the door opening. An auburn-haired young man is escorted in by two guards.

Sansa feels her heart stop. Before she realizes it, she’s sprinted across the room and tearfully thrown her arms about her brother’s neck. “Robb! Oh, gods! Thank the Seven you’re alive!” 

She feels the unevenness of his grip, the lack of pressure where the imprint of a middle finger should be. She grabs his hand and kisses it. He cries as well, and moves to grip her by the shoulders. 

Bran is right, his beard is a couple shades lighter than his hair. 

“Sansa, please, you have to get out of here, now. I beg of you. Leave me, I’m not worth it. I---” 

But her brother is interrupted by the sudden line of maids who enter, carrying in pails of water, bags of fabric, and assorted boxes. 

“Leave!” Sansa cries, “I must speak with my brother!” 

“Apologies, My Lady, but the king wanted you seen to at once!” One of the maids declares. “He insists he wants you ‘utterly pampered’ in time to greet him at court today.”

“That isn’t---”

“My lady,” the maid says again, “The king _insists.”_

 Sansa looks around at her other visitors, terrified. “Tell me,” she says, “What does he intend?”

Even Prince Oberyn looks sympathetic. “He intends to make you a whore.”

~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~

The portrait gown was nothing to this… this… confection of silvery white silk and luminescent beads. Stay with the wolves, she reminds herself. He can’t hurt you as long as you have your pack.

And indeed, she does take some pleasure when she and the wolves enter the throne room and she sees the man atop the mythical seat tense his jaw and lose his smile upon seeing her loyal guard of canines. The wolves are as large and majestic as any horse. Even the sweet, pretty Lady fixes the king with a sharp, yellow glare.

He’s handsome, she must admit, but in a way that is almost frightening. His eyes are blue, but a far darker, deeper blue than should be natural. The Targaryens have always had rather unnatural, rare features --- purple eyes and silver-white hair--- but one prepares for those. But Aegon’s eyes are like a dusky sky. The paleness of his hair and skin only make them stand out more. To his right is his Uncle Viserys, a traditional looking Targaryen through and through, rumored to be mad, like his father. But Aegon named his uncle Hand immediately upon his ascension, supplanting Rhaegar’s own loyal Hand, Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of Morning. Ser Arthur, still Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, stands at the foot of the royal dais amidst his fellow white cloaks. His eyes fix upon the wolves and his hand goes to the hilt of Dawn, his family valyrian blade. But he does not move.

Aegon glares as Sansa enters, like a shepherd to her pack.

It is his plan to plaster her image all over the kingdom, dress her like a doll, then sell her to any suitable bidder. To reduce the pride of House Stark to a brothel casualty and never let her escape the shame. For everyone in Westeros would know her face, and know it to be that of a lady whose body was for sale. She’d be the most recognizable brothel girl in the world, defined by it, nothing else.

But now, Aegon knows this shall not happen. His entire Kingsguard could not even fight their way through four enormous direwolves. No man shall dare try to buy her. Even if all the wolves are somehow slain, their eyes shall follow. Rumors will spread that she commands not just one pack of four, but all the wolves of the kingdom. That any man who rapes her shall meet a grisly end. The scar on the king’s own face is enough to ward off any potential buyers. 

She spots some of the younger men given positions of honor near the royal dais. She notes one blond, worm-lipped lording whose doublet boasts two crests: the gryphon of House Connington and the lion of House Lannister. Joffrey Connington, who was starting to go rather green at the sight of her pack. 

Aegon’s game has finished before it even began. 

So she walks down the aisle confidently, head held high, and curtseys to her king.

“Your Grace, I am honored to be received here at your court. Allow me to express my sympathies at the passing of your father, King Rhaegar, and offer congratulations, on behalf of my family, on your upcoming coronation. May you have a long and prosperous reign.”

“Lady Sansa, it is an honor to receive you,” Aegon declares, his mind racing behind his dark purple eyes. “We thank you for your sympathies and congratulations. As you know, you’ve been summoned here to fulfill a vocation for the crown in order to repay the injuries done to the royal person by your brother, Lord Robb.”

Sansa grits her teeth. “I am here because you summoned me and threatened to send my father my brother’s head if you didn’t come.”

The Hall goes silent. Many people gape. Sansa’s gaze never falters.

The new king doesn’t, either. “You Starks have always been bold, haven’t you?”

“It is the bold who survive the winter, Your Grace.”

“Well then, if that’s so, it’s fair to assume that one such as yourself can survive anything,” Aegon replies, a cruel smile enveloping his features, “Lady Sansa, the women of your House, thanks to the exploits of your late Aunt, Lyanna, have acquired a rather… unsavory reputation. I had hoped to summon you here to put that reputation to some good use in service of the crown’s coffers. But it seems that shall not be feasible.”

Sansa says nothing. He shall have no response from her.

Discouraged, he continues. “So, I have decided to come up with a different role for you. One which shall satisfy your desire to reclaim your family, your obligation to heal some wounds of the past, and your already established reputation as a great beauty. What do you think about that?”

“I think that I should know what you’re proposing before I form an opinion.”

The king’s eyes narrow. “Yes. Well, as you are also aware, your Aunt and my dear mother were not the only ones to suffer grievous harm from the incident that earned me this scar. Your cousin, my half-brother Prince Jon, befell a nasty protective curse when he attacked me. One that has changed him, morphed him from a man to a creature more frightening and hideous than has been seen since the Others themselves. Since then, he has been forced to live feral, in seclusion. My kind mother and her family have been good enough to try and accommodate him, but there is little one can do to accommodate a beast. I think perhaps it is time that he be humanized somewhat, this animal brother of mine. So, I propose a royal match of sorts. I task you with going to my brother’s home and becoming… well, not his wife, of course, one cannot marry a beast… but his… well, companion. Devote yourself to providing him with whatever comfort he requires of you as his mate, Sansa Stark. You do seem to have a knack for monsters.”

There are snickers and gasps throughout the hall. She grits her teeth. Regardless of how feral and wild a monster Jon may have become, he cannot be any worse than his half-brother. Still, she glares. 

“And why should I do such a thing, Your Grace? I have committed no crime against the crown, and not even a king can order an innocent lady to be devoured by a monster.” 

“Because if you do, your criminal brother shall be absolved of his crimes and sent back to your family. If you do not serve his sentence, well, he will have to be executed. So, Lady Sansa, which is it? Become my cursed brother’s mate, or bring your brother’s head home to your poor mother and father?” 

“How can I be assured of my brother’s freedom if I do this?” The questions sparks murmurs and whispers. The king smirks.

“I will send you, your brother, and your wolves to travel with my uncle Oberyn to Jon’s… habitat. Once you are delivered, your brother shall be free.” 

~_~_~_~_~

Robb tries to abscond with her throughout the journey, but both she and Oberyn sabotage his attempts. Even if they make it past the Red Viper, they’d be hunted by the entire kingdom.

At night, he whispers to her, begging her to take the risk. “I loved Jon,” he murmurs to her as they lay side by side beneath the stars, “But you cannot sacrifice yourself like this.” 

“You speak of our cousin as if he is dead,” Sansa replies, stomach lurching.

“The Jon I knew is. That… thing… that has taken his place… You haven’t seen it, heard it, known it. I have. It barely stood on two legs and couldn’t speak. Its jaws are enormous, its paws have two-inch, silver claws. It is covered all over with black and white fur and its eyes are as red as blood. It harmed several servants before Rhaegar sent it away. When I first saw it, Sansa, I looked, hoping to see our cousin, whom I loved like a brother, but I saw nothing. I spent years searching for a cure, but it was fruitless. Rhaegar, for all his faults, loved Jon. Adored him. But even he knew he had to exile him from court. There’s a reason for that. Since then, Jon has been secluded in Dorne, in that tower Rhaegar hid Lyanna in during the war. Rhaegar had the Red Viper and the Sand Snakes enchant the place to keep him there, and who knows what other magic they placed on it. It probably made him even more beastly and dangerous. If that thing doesn’t kill you at once, he’ll violate you, just as Aegon intends. He might even seed you with some freak children. So please, Sansa, escape. I’m not worth it.” 

“You are heir to Winterfell!”

“I’ve not been to Winterfell since I was small!” Robb replies, “Father has other sons…”

“No!” Sansa glares. “Ever since Mother’s accident, all she has wanted is to see you again. Do you think that I am going to deny her that? If she sees you, there’s a chance she’ll come back completely. I am not going to deny Father, you, or any of our siblings the chance to have her back. If not for you, then for Arya, Bran, and Rickon. They deserve to have a mother again. Father deserves to have his wife back.”

“Gods, Sansa, aren’t you afraid?”

“Of course, when I let myself think about it.”

He doesn’t stop pleading with her until they all reach a certain… spot… within the desert which seems to carry with it a strange air. The wolves begin to yelp and whine. Sansa feels it too, a sort of… tremor. In the distance, she thinks she can spot the famous Tower of Joy, standing like a beacon across the sand dunes.

“This is where we part,” Prince Oberyn says, dismounting from his jet-black stallion.

“Sansa, please!” Robb cries, leaning over in his saddle to grab her hand.

She looks her brother in the eyes sadly. “Robb, if I don’t do this, I will never forgive myself. I’d rather face a painful death for my family than live a life of self-loathing.”

Prince Oberyn appears by her saddle, reaching out to help her from her stead. She takes his offer. The Dornish prince has been surprisingly gentle and courteous throughout the trip. Every time Robb tried to run away with her, Sansa thought for sure that the Red Viper would strike or kill her brother. Instead, whether it was Sansa or the prince who foiled the plan, Oberyn would react with little more than annoyance. After the third attempt, he bound Robb’s wrists for a while, but did nothing more extreme than that. 

The prince looks at her with sympathy. “I’m going to place a spell on you and your wolves. The king orders that I curse you so that you can never leave the tower without royal permission. I can’t exactly refuse him, but I intend to lend you more than a curse. I’m casting the spell on the wolves as well, so they will always be with you. And I will cast some protective magic on all of you as well. I’m not sure that it will protect you forever, but it should at least fend off my step-nephew somewhat, at first.”

Robb, who has alighted, marches over. “What trick is this, Martell?” He demands.

“No trick, Stark,” Prince Oberyn says, “I have no desire to hurt your sister. When my good-brother absconded with Lyanna, the Mad King took my sister and her children hostage to ensure Dorne’s loyalty. Rhaegar allowed this. My sister and her babes were at the nonexistent mercy of the Mad King and his enemies. There were rumors that the Lannisters nearly changed sides and nearly sacked King’s Landing instead of fortifying it. Tywin Lannister put a sadistic monster, Ser Gregor Clegane the Mountain that Rides, at the head of his army. This man butchered several of his wives and tortured smallfolk. And my sister was nearly at the edge of his sword. Nothing was done to protect her until we arrived in the capital. Do you honestly think I want another innocent woman put in that sort of danger?”

“Then let us go!” Robb insists.

Oberyn shakes his head sadly. “I would love to, truly, I would. But if someone discovered that I had defied my nephew like that, chaos would ensue. Even if I convinced Aegon that it was an accident, he’d likely execute one or more of my girls to punish me. Or even one of his half-siblings. You are not the only one with family in danger. Another rebellion could break out, and if so… what nearly happened to my family during the last one could occur this time.”

Sansa nods. “I understand, Prince Oberyn. Is… Is it possible for you to perhaps turn me into a beast like Jon? That might be enough to protect me.”

The prince shakes his head, “Even if that weren’t a fate worse than death, I couldn’t. I’m not entirely sure how what happened to Jon occurred. That’s why I can’t discover how the spell is broken." 

He bites his lip for a moment, glances at the tower in the distance, then looks back at Sansa. “There’s one more thing I can do. That tower is Jon’s now, and I enchanted that place to cater to his wants and needs. I could link you to the place as well, so it does the same for you. That way, the tower will protect you as well.” 

“But if it is designed to suit Jon’s whims, what if it is his whim to harm me?” Sansa asks. 

“A good point,” Oberyn sighs, “Still, it may work, and there’s no harm in trying, is there?” 

“I suppose not.”

“Sansa, don’t let him! Please!” Robb cries.

But she looks into the prince’s snake-like eyes boldly. “Do it, Prince Oberyn.”

Even if Robb is right, and the man is just looking to curse her further… He was already going to cast a spell on her anyways. What was the point of resisting? She was doomed regardless.

Then there is Lady, who merely sits beside her and watches calmly. Lady can sniff out falsehood, and if she detected any in Oberyn, she’d make that clear.

Sansa closes her eyes. She feels something like a gentle breeze, then a sort of odd hum that lasts just a few seconds.

“There.”

She opens her eyes to find that herself seemingly unchanged. Oberyn steps back. 

“You start walking toward the Tower, and you shall make it there sooner than you expect. Say your good-byes now, Starks, for once she starts for her new home, she cannot turn back.

Robb and Sansa embrace frantically.

“I wish I could add Grey Wind to your pack,” he whispers tearfully. “It’s not fair. We haven’t seen each other since you were practically a babe, and now we must part forever.”

Sansa steps back and cups his cheek. “Perhaps, perhaps not. Who knows? Maybe I will break the spell.”

“If anyone could, it would be you.”

She smiles at him. “Get home and take care of our family, alright? Be careful. Don’t do anything stupid.”

“I promise. And the same to you.”

“I swear it,” she says softly. She leans forward again and kisses both cheeks. Reluctantly, Robb releases her. 

Sansa looks to Oberyn. “He’s free, right?”

The Prince nods. “The horse and all manner of supplies he’ll need to return home are here. He is free to ride back the whole way, or accompany me to Suspear to catch a ship to White Harbor.” 

Sansa bites her lip and glances at Lady, who is still calm. She looks into Robb’s eyes. “Take the ship from Sunspear, please. You’ll get back faster, and it will be safer.” 

Her brother nods morosely. “As you wish.” 

They embrace once more, then, inhaling deeply, Sansa turns toward the tower. She exhales, as if expelling her freedom, closes her eyes, and takes her first step. 

~_~_~_~_~

The Dornish Sun and general climate has been rough on her ever since they passed the Marshes, but the longer Sansa walks, the cooler and easier it all seems. The biting, sandy winds die away in favor of gentle breezes, and as the tower grows closer, the entire terrain almost seems to change.

Oberyn warned her and Robb when they started for Dorne that the desert could play tricks on you, make you see things that are not really there. So when Sansa starts to see what looks like green surrounding the tower, she tells herself that this is merely that. But the image does not go away. In fact, as she moves closer to the tower, it’s almost like the landmark is also moving closer to her.

Growing, in fact, and not in the manner that something merely gets bigger the closer you get. No, if Sansa didn’t know any better, she’d swear that the green was spreading and… expanding. Every time she blinked, she could swear that trees, bushes and other fauna had appeared where there wasn’t any before.

The tower itself… Well, it seemed almost like there wasn’t a “tower” anymore, but a whole castle. A palace, almost. One grand and beautiful enough for any king, made of shining alabaster, with vast domes and turrets and halls.

All of it, the palace and the land surrounding it (land that was starting to turn into gardens and forests), seemed to be expanding and growing, spreading out to meet her. 

Oberyn was right, she reaches this place quicker than she thinks. Before she knows it, her foot falls not upon golden sand, but thick, green grass. Sansa blinks, and all of a sudden, she’s standing before an immense and intricate silver gate that opens its doors to her. She steps past the threshold to find trees of every kind: fir, oak, elm, weirwood and a path before her. Sansa glances behind her as the gates shut to find thick, alabaster walls have appeared 

_Trapped._

Everywhere she looks, there are rocks, trees, grass, bushes. But there is also silence. No singing birds or chirping squirrels. The direwolves are the only animals in this forest, it seems. 

Sansa blinks again, expecting critters to appear, but they don’t. It’s eerie, this silence. Almost more frightening than the prospect of the monsters she’s supposed to serve.

She looks around at her wolves. “What do you all think?” She asks.

Nymeria answers by simply padding ahead of them, only briefly looking back as if to say, “You coming?”

Sansa shrugs, and she and the others follow Arya’s bold direwolf.

Before long, they pass through the empty forest to find themselves in an immense garden. After weeks traveling the seemingly endless golden landscapes of Dorne, Sansa is nearly floored by the explosion of color that greets her. Blooms of every hue burst for seemingly miles, and interrupted only by white stone pathways, marble statues and fountains, and the occasional grating. And, in the near distance, is the palace, as large as the Red Keep, a looming structure of gleaming white stone. 

Whatever Sansa had expected when Oberyn explained the charms he and his family placed upon her cousin’s home, it wasn’t this. But it seems that they were not kidding about the place catering to the wants and needs of its occupants.

 _How much of this is just for me, and how much of this was made for him?_ Sansa wonders, marveling at the beauty that surrounds her. She spots a hedge maze in the distance, like the one in the illustration of Highgarden in one of her books.

 _If this is all for me,_ she reasons, _the castle has accomplished much very quickly, so surely it can protect me if Jon tries to harm me. And if not, then it will be him who has created much of this, and if his needs and whims conjure this, then surely he cannot be as monstrous as they say._

She knows she’s trying to calm herself. Consciously, she knows she cannot turn back now. But the less rational part of her mind screams for her to run. This beautiful place reminds her of her reception at the Red Keep. Luxury at the surface of an ornate trap.

To comfort herself, Sansa threads her fingers through Lady’s coat as she ventures forth towards the palace. As she passes through the flora, though, something catches her eye, and she stops short.

Just a few yards away is a collection of enormous rose bushes covered in blue blooms.

Sansa gapes. Winter roses. Blue roses are rare, unheard of anywhere but the North, where they bloom even in winter. Sansa grew them during winter, using their petals to make rosewater for the apothecaries.

Her Aunt Lyanna loved Winter Roses. She used to have mounds of them delivered to the Red Keep from the North. At that legendary tourney at Harrenhal, Rhaegar crowned her Queen of Love and Beauty with a circlet of them.

Perhaps…

Everyone insists that Jon is a monster now, fully. That there is no spark of the man he was left. But maybe, just maybe, if she took some, she might remind him of his mother. And, if so, it might bring back some of his humanity.

So she heads to the bushes and gingerly begins snapping stems. She gathers the flowers in her skirt, then sits in the grass to de-thorn them.

She wonders if Lyanna ever wore Winter Rose circlets ever again, after that tourney. Perhaps she avoided it to spare Elia a reminder of that humiliation. Sansa hopes so. It would be the least her aunt could do.

Humming to herself, Sansa starts weaving the stems together. Nymeria paces in circles around her, half-patrolling, half impatient to get to the castle. The other wolves lay around her, seemingly content.

The scent of the roses combined with the wolves surrounding her creates a sharp pang of homesickness. Sansa wonders, vaguely, if there is a godswood here. _Can the castle make one?_ Magic is one thing, but she isn’t sure if it can create a divine site. It seems almost sacrilegious to imagine it.

Tension bursts through when all of the wolves suddenly lift their heads and look in the same direction. Sansa’s heart skips a beat. Jon is coming. She rushes to finish the circlet and crams it on her head as she hears something large and grunting approach.

She just rises and turns in the direction of the noise when the creature rounds the corner and appears.

Sansa barely stifles a cry when she sees him… It… Jon… Whatever.

The thing is seven feet tall, with legs like a wolf’s. Silver claws --- shorter than two inches, much shorter--- gleam from the paws. The claws on his hands ---- long-fingered, bony hands--- are easily that long. All over the creature’s hulking frame is thick, shaggy fur. There are patches of dark brown, black, and white, sometimes with speckles like a farmhorse, sometimes with the colors intermixed. The texture of the fur seems equally inconsistent, with some patches curly and long, others straight. The hair is thickest and bushiest at the head, and the head is truly the worst part.

The being’s mouth has enormous, leathery black lips from which five-inch fangs protrude: two from the top, almost like the tusks of a walrus, and two sticking up from the bottom gums, like blades. The black nose is shiny and wet. Ears that resemble bat wings stick out from the top of the beast’s head. 

Then there are the eyes, the horrible eyes. Robb was wrong. They are not red like blood, but red like burning coals: angry, fiery, almost crackling with apparent anger. Sansa dips into a curtsy so as not to look into them any longer.

But as she rises, she realizes that she was so focused on the beast’s terrible eyes that she failed to notice perhaps the strangest part of what she sees: the thing is dressed.

Or, rather, as dressed as something like this can probably be. It’s clear that actual effort was put in, too. The thing is unshod, but breeches of black velvet encase the thing’s pelvis and thighs. Its chest and upper arms are encased in a silk doublet the color of wine. A black velvet cloak hangs from the beast’s immense shoulders as well, held in place by a gold clasp that shimmers at its throat. 

The clothes appear to technically fit, but they are still clearly… wrong. And awkward. It’s like if someone tried to make Summer look like a gentleman. The absurdity of it is enough to make Sansa forget her terror at the eyes and greet them again. 

They still appear angry --- Sansa suspects eyes like these can never not look that way--- but there is a hint of curiosity to them as well. 

The creature says nothing, and Sansa remembers that it can’t talk. Nymeria and Shaggydog begin to growl, gathering around her protectively. Sansa shushes them.

“P-Prince Jon, I presume?” She can’t ignore that Lady and Summer also seem tense.

The Beast grunts, then, to her surprise, dips into a bow.

The gesture floods her with both relief and some manner of odd triumph. Jon. It’s Jon. Or close to it. It remembers its manners! Perhaps it shall not be so bad.

Then she recalls the fact that Jon has no idea what she’s doing here, or who she is. Unless… Can ravens be sent here? Perhaps Aegon wrote? She’s not sure. There are no animals here, but perhaps some can be sent from time to time.

“I-I’m not sure if you were sent word, but I am your cousin, Lady Sansa Stark of Winterfell. Your half-brother---” She’s briefly cut off when the Beast growls at the mention of Aegon, but carries on, “---sent me here to be your… companion.”

The Beast starts grunting again, intermixed with huffs and odd whines. It takes Sansa several seconds to realize that he’s trying to speak.

Despite her fear, her heart aches for him. “It’s--- It’s al---”

“Ah--- Ah--- Aye--- I… ngh-- nnn---know.” It says this in a thick growl. The being pauses, almost as if savoring his triumph, then repeats, “ _I know.”_

A thousand questions burst into her head, but she hesitates to ask any. She doesn’t want to humiliate him further by prompting him to speak. She decides to stick to yes or no queries. “Aegon wrote?” 

The Beast shakes his massive head. “Th---thhhh----thss----Sssah---Saw.”

 _Saw what?! How?_ She wonders, baffled. 

As if reading her mind, the Beast continues to try and speak. “Nnnn---vvvv---mmmmajhi---magic. W-wayzzz…” 

“You have magic that allows you to see things coming?” 

The Beast nods. 

Her heart rises. Then perhaps… She can watch over her family, watch to see if Robb gets home safe, if his presence heals Mother! Sansa swallows. “May… May I use it? To watch over my family?”

The Beast makes a few awkward gestures and sounds.

“You don’t know, do you?”

It nods. 

“Can I try?”

It hesitates, then nods. It turns and gestures for her to follow.

As it turns out, the castle does have a godswood, complete with a genuine Heart Tree and a reflecting pool. Jon points to the pool gruffly.

Heart beating a thousand beats per minute, Sansa walks up to the crystalline pool and looks into it, willing herself to see Robb. But she just sees a nervous looking redhead surrounded by wolves, one of which leans down to lap at the water’s surface, causing ripples. Sansa looks back at the Beast.

“Are there magic words or… or something?”

It shakes its head.

She looks back at her reflection. “Show me my brother, Robb Stark,” she commands.

But nothing appears. She asks it to show her Arya. Nothing. So the pool is only for the beast. Sansa sinks to her knees, suddenly exhausted.

Nymeria and Shaggydog whine as Jon approaches, but they do not attack when he/it bends over. Awkwardly, the creature pats her on the shoulder, so hard that she falls forward, right into the pool. 

The wolves howl, so does the Beast, who scrambles into the water. But Sansa, a strong swimmer, quickly finds her footing and hoists herself out of the pond. Relieved, the beast scrambles out as well, its fine clothes ruined and its fur matted. 

It shakes itself when it gets out, much like the wolves when they get wet, and Sansa is sprayed with water and shed fur. She covers her face and turns away, not wanting to get it in her mouth or eyes.

 Jon groans and tries to speak again. “Zzz… Sss… Sorry.”

Sansa takes a deep breath and finds herself laughing. “Oh, gods, you poor thing!”

Jon stares at her for a couple seconds, opens his mouth further, as if to say something, then closes it. He points towards the castle and jerks his head, as if to invite her in. 

Eager for some dry clothing, Sansa nods and follows the Beast towards the palace. As they walk, she asks whatever yes or no questions she can think of.

“Was this place just like this before I arrived?”

He shakes his head.

“So much of this came to be as I approached.” 

Nod. 

“Did you do anything when you learned I was coming?”

Nod.

“Do I have a room?”

Nod. 

She takes a deep breath. The question that frightens her the most burns upon her tongue. She tries to phrase it as delicately as possible.

“You… You don’t intend to hurt me or kill me or eat me, do you?”

Jon shakes his head furiously, and looks at her with a miserable expression.

“Do… Do you expect me to be your mate?” She asks, hating the hurt her words are probably causing him. 

The Beast pauses, looks towards the palace again, then shakes its head slowly. 

Sansa cannot help her sigh of relief. “I do not wish to be unkind, you know that, right?”

The Beast nods.

Her heart aches for him. “You… you still have so much trouble speaking, but you managed a few words. Perhaps… Perhaps I can help you speak properly again. Would you like to try?”

Jon looks at her again, eyes a bit wider, like red suns. Then, slowly, he nods.

“I--inside, you’re still Jon completely, aren’t you?”

Jon neither shakes his head, nor nods, merely hangs his head and slumps his shoulders miserably. 

“... You’re not sure, are you?”

Another no. Sansa sighs.

“Well, you’re bound to have changed with years in exile, as any man would. Especially under such traumatic circumstances. I’ve seen people change during the winter. I certainly did. That doesn’t make you a monster, though. You’ve been like this for seven years now. You’re not going to be exactly the same person as you were before, with or without the curse. However I may help, I’m happy to do it. We can start with speaking, and once we can communicate better, we can go from there. Can… Can you write with those… nails?”

He shakes his head again, then looks up at her once more. She’s stunned to see tears running from his eyes.

It makes her want to cry. She moves closer to him and rests a hand upon his furry arm. He stares at her hand, as if in wonder, then closes his eyes.

“It’s no matter,” she whispers, “We’ll focus on speaking first. I’m sure you have much to say. I know you’re not evil. I mean… you dressed for me, didn’t you?”

Eyes still closed, the Beast nods.

 “I thought so. You seem uncomfortable being dressed, as if you haven’t been in a long time. I appreciate the effort, but you don’t have to anymore. I understand.” They reach the gilded entrance of the Keep. 

The Beast growls, and instinctively, Sansa pulls back, a chill going down her spine. She regrets it, for the Beast tenses up, opens his crying, red eyes, then bolts.

Rattled, Sansa looks to her wolves. They look back. 

“I feel like I’ve already made such a mess. And I’m not even inside the castle yet. I shouldn’t have done that. That poor thing.”

Sansa hugs herself and shivers. _How will I find my bedchamber, without him to show me?_ She must get dry, lest she manage to catch a cold in Dorne. Perhaps she can just find a lit fireplace and dry out there?

Forlorn, she enters a high-ceilinged, domed entry hall, lit by seemingly a thousand candles. The flames flicker so much that the fixtures themselves almost seem to move.

Her shoes clack against the marble floors as she walks. There are five passages, it seems, and Sansa chooses the center one at random and finds herself in a narrow, paneled, doorless hall leading to a winding staircase. Sansa goes forward, the wolves following like a line of ducklings behind their mother. She climbs the stairs at an alarming pace, despite the fact that she does not move any faster than normal, almost like the steps themselves are moving. Before she knows it, she’s made it to another hallway, this one with powder blue wall paper and shining gold sconces. A white door is at the end of the hall, and when Sansa gets close, she sees a gold plaque on the door engraved with her name circled by the image of five prancing wolves.

The chamber is something out of a dream. More than that. It resembles her fantasies, drawings she used to make when she was a girl and imagining her ideal apartments. There’s the large window overlooking a garden with the stained glass rosebud designs on the outer panels and the seat with the blue silk cushions. There are murals on the walls depicting scenes from her favorite stories and some of her favorite places, including Winterfell and places she’d only ever seen in books but longed to visit, like Braavos, the Water Gardens, the Eyrie, and Highgarden.

The furniture is cherry wood with robins’ egg and silver draperies. Not only is there an immense four-poster bed, but there are five giant platforms along the left wall topped with immense blue cushions, each with a little plaque above them reading “Lady”, “Nymeria”, “Summer”, and “Shaggydog”. Sansa laughs as Lady trots over to hers at once and reclines atop the pillow, grand as a queen.

There are three doors: one by the biggest window with matching glass panels that reveal a balcony, and two white ones. Curious, Sansa chooses the white door on the right and finds herself in a jaw-dropping marble bathing chamber, with a pool as big as any at Winterfell built into the ground, basins, fluffy blue towels, a full-length mirror, silver-handled cabinets, and silver fixtures. Curious, Sansa approaches the basin in front of a mirror and fiddles with one of the fixtures, finding that it is a turning knob. To her amazement, water suddenly bursts out from it. Gingerly, she tests it with her finger. It’s warm. Amazed, she glances at the tub and sees similar knobs there.

The wonder of it all makes her feel a little faint, so she turns off the water and staggers out of the wondrous water-room. Upon re-entering the bedchamber, she finds that there is a garment waiting for her atop the bedspread. She nears the bed and gapes upon finding a robe of ivory silk so fine it seems to flow through her hands like water.

Her terror and confusion back at the Red Keep didn’t allow her to enjoy any of the finery Aegon supplied her, but here… now… If this is a trap, she’s already doomed. _Enjoy it, Sansa,_ she tells herself.

So she strips off the riding costume that she’s been wearing since setting out, cringing at the amount of sand that falls out of it as she does, and wraps herself in the robe. The thing is loose, with three-quarter sleeves, and is belted at the waist with a powder-blue sash.

It occurs to her that the garments here will not be limited to the robe. Considering the splendor with which she’s already been presented, Sansa eyes the third door with some trepidation. It is surely the closet, and she’s not sure she’s ready for that. She suspects that even her appreciation for sartorial splendor has its limits, and that whatever lies beyond that door will test them.

She thinks of the people of the North, still recovering from the winter, and her stomach sinks from guilt. Still… What can she do? Taking a deep breath, Sansa enters the closet.

...Which is more like an armory, but for silk. It’s bigger than her bedchamber back home. One of the far corners has a three-part, full-length mirror, the walls are lined with shelves of jewelry boxes and accessories like hats, fans, and gloves and wracks of gowns encased in silvery-sheer protective wraps. Next to the big mirror is a dressing table of solid silver with glittering contents. When Sansa nears it, she finds a hairdressing kit of silver and mother of pearl, silver jars and bottles of powders and creams, and crystal scent bottles with jeweled stoppers. On the other side of the dressing table, the wall is all blue drawers. Gingerly, Sansa opens one to find a collection of silk stockings. Another with undersilk. Slips. Breast bands. Corsets. All of varying fabrics and colors. The drawers of the dressing table contain ribbons, pins, brushes, and all other manner of grooming accoutrements.

In one corner, there is even a sewing station, complete with dress-dummy, bolts of fine cloth, and glass cases displaying all manner of tools and thread.

Sansa doesn’t have to try anything on to know that everything here will fit perfectly. This is beyond anything she ever dreamt of. She doubts the richest queens in the world can boast wardrobes so fine.

She doesn’t have to try anything on, but she wants to. Her inner child demands it, in fact. So she peruses the hanging gowns, opening their shields to analyze them. There doesn’t seem to be a color or style this place doesn’t possess. It’s like a garden of fashions.

Some of them are so extravagant that they make her blush and turn away from sheer embarrassment. _There are people in the North still going hungry,_ she thinks as she turns away from a gown that appears to literally be encrusted with diamonds. 

That one tempers her enthusiasm a bit, and she eventually settles on trying on something very fine, but certainly more on the simple end of the scale this closet presents. She chooses a gown of bone-colored satin, hemmed with pearls. The skirt is narrow, the neckline low and square, and the bodice is undecorated. 

She removes the dress from its wrap and hangs it, still on its hanger, from a hook by the big mirror, then pauses. She should bathe, at least, before putting on something so fine. Time to face the blinding-white bathroom again.

The tub/pool, as it turns out, has multiple knobs. One dispenses water of the ideal temperature for a bath. Others dispense oils and thick liquids that turn out to be soaps. Once Sansa is done, the rose-scented water has a canopy of fluffy white bubbles. She’s almost afraid to disturb it.

But her skin itches, so she gingerly steps into the pool. It’s utter bliss. It feels like the first truly warm day after the long winter. She relaxes in the bath for a while before inspecting some of the spigots again. A few have labels, such as ones that instruct her to use each on her hair in a certain order. There’s another spigot, this one atop a bar several feet above the rim of the bath labeled ‘for rinsing’. Water sprays from it, rinsing the hair liquids from her locks, which, after weeks of being knotted and ruined by sandy winds, becomes silken and flowing.

Sansa wallows in the bath until her hands and feet prune, and even then she steps out reluctantly. She pads herself dry with the fluffy towels, her skin rosy and soft, and dries her hair.

When she emerges from the bathroom in her robe, she once again finds garments waiting for her atop the bed, summoned there as if by magic. Stockings, slip, corset, breast band, pantalets…

 _Enchantment,_ Sansa reminds herself, wondering if she’ll ever get used to it. She looks around for her wolves, wondering if they’d been spooked. But Nymeria and Shaggydog were out on the balcony, looking content, while Lady and Summer snoozed peacefully atop their beds. Reassured, she tugs on everything but the corset, which gives her pause. She’s worn them before, of course, and knows how they’re put on, but dealing with the laces was difficult without another person to help.  

“How am I to bind that thing properly without a maid?” She wonders aloud. 

As if to answer, the corset suddenly floats into the air. Sansa cries out as the thing opens then winds itself around her like it is alive. Lady wakes and raises her head at the sound of her mistress’s voice, but when she does nothing more beyond that, Sansa relaxes slightly as she feels the garments bind itself around her. With a jolting tug, the thing knots and finishes itself.

“Um, thank you,” she says awkwardly, wondering if there is someone or something to hear it. No response. A little uneasy, she heads back to the closet to find that many of the jewel-cases on the shelves have opened themselves, displaying various pieces, all of which would match beautifully with the gown. Unsure if she even wants to wear jewels (surely the pearls on the gown are enough?), she hurries to put on the dress itself. She gulps as the laces begin to do themselves. Sansa gazes at herself in the big mirror, with its three, angled sections. She’s always done her best to act like a lady, but she cannot help taking some joy in looking like one as well. Still… her hair, still damp, just hangs down about her shoulders, chest, and back.

Curious, she speaks her next desire aloud. “A white ribbon, I think, just to tie my hair back from my face.” 

A drawer opens and a satin ribbon flies through the air and into her waiting hand.

She laughs with wonder. “To think, we were all so horrified about me coming here,” she remarks, “It might still be a danger but… Gods, I wish Robb could see me now. It might set his heart at ease.” She remembers her conversations with Bran and Arya. “Perhaps Bran can tell him I’m alright when he reaches Winterfell.”

When her hair is done, she admires herself in the mirror a bit. If this is a trap, she may as well enjoy the good parts while she can. And it’s not as if she appears completely outlandish. The gown is simple enough.

After a few minutes, her stomach growls, and Sansa realizes how hungry she is. A pair of bone-colored slippers wait for her by the closet door, and she tugs them on while venturing out to the hall again, eager to find a meal. _The castle shall lead me to one,_ she thinks to herself, _or lead me to be a meal._


	3. Communication

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Beast reflects on his past and present.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> JON POV!!!

_ His life here began with a run. When he first saw the Tower in which he was born and the vast expanse of golden nothing that surrounded it. The enchanted new home that Uncle Oberyn and Aunt Elia had arranged for him. It would see to his every want and need, save for companionship. And all his wants and needs were of empty land. _

_ He’d dropped to his hands and knees for the first time, trying not to weep at the thought that he wouldn’t be the one to teach his baby brother to ride a pony or swing a sword. He’d waited so many years for a little brother, too. And as soon as Ben is walking and talking on his own… _

_ He will not be able to look after his sisters, see Danny on her wedding day. His mother is dead, his father had no choice but to exile him. Robb is locked away. Ghost and Grey Wind were gone. _

_ All his heart beat for was gone. The people he loved. Because he wasn’t a person anymore. So he ignored the tower, sunk onto all fours, and ran. And ran. And ran. The only noble thing a beast can do. He ran and ran from all the love that he’d been robbed of. The enchanted home he’d been given changed from desert to grassy meadows to volcanic gravel to forests. And he was alone through it all. The only other animals he found were small game that appeared before him whenever he grew hungry. He ran and ran. At nights, he howled, whether the moon was full or not. _

_ Until one day, he could run no more, and he crumbled to the ground and wept. Wept for his lost mother, his lost home, his lost humanity, his lost life. He wept himself to sleep. _

_ When he awoke, it was amidst a garden of his mother’s favorite Winter Roses. The tower of his birth loomed overhead. And just beyond the garden was a small wood, at the center of which was a Heart Tree and a curious, magical pond. _

_ ~_~_~_~_~ _

_ I didn’t ask for this. _

_ But then, that’s not really the point, is it? She didn’t ask for this either, _ Jon thinks to himself as he explores the new forest and gardens that have sprung up with Sansa’s arrival. Before, there were just the blue rose bushes, just like the ones Mother told him about. And stretches and stretches of different terrain and the godswood. And, of course, the tower. The tower where he was born.

His new companion is providing him with the most maddening experience he’s had since his transformation.

According to practically everyone who describes the incident, ‘It all happened so fast’. 

And, indeed, there were some very rapid occurrences that day in the practice yard. Almost everything leading up to the actual change was quick. Sure, it took Aegon some time to fully provoke them into making fists. He had to go as far as proposing that he rape their sisters before Robb finally lost his composure and lunged at Jon’s half-brother. And everything from that point to when Jon saw Obara’s hex miss Grey Wind and hit Mother was frantic. 

But time seemed to slow the moment that crackling violet light hit Lyanna Stark. She’d been trying to push both boys back, angrily shouting at Ghost and Grey Wind to heel. The wolves usually obeyed the Stark queen, but their masters were threatened, so they barely heard her. She was shouting and shouting until… she wasn’t.

The anger, the passion, the desperation in her beautiful face just suddenly drained out. And she just… sunk.

Lyanna Stark, upon being established in her new husband’s court, used her new freedom and status to pursue a long-withheld dream: to learn to use a blade properly. By the time Jon was old enough to start learning, his mother was decent enough to show him the basics. But she was always better with a lance than a sword. And so Jon, growing up, often witnessed his mother learning, sparring, and, often, being knocked into the mud. 

But whenever she did fall, she fell hard, and she jumped up just as quick. Even when she ended up flat in the mud, it was almost like a tumble, the way she approached it. She always had to be forced down, and never stayed that way for long. Lyanna always slammed into defeat, she never surrendered, never dropped, never gave up. She always had a good sense of humor about it, too. Even the time Ser Rowan broke her arm, she rose with a twinkle in her dark grey eyes, clutching her damaged limb. It always inspired Jon. As a lad, even when he suffered his biggest bruises at the hands of his instructors and peers, he’d try to jump back up, just like Mother. He’d hold back every tear.

Obara’s curse striking Mother was something different, though. Jon knew before her body hit the dirt that it was final. She didn’t slam to the ground, she just sunk. The angry glimmer in her eyes was gone. Her eyes, though wide open, weren’t seeing anything. And it seemed so very, very slow.

His mother was gone. Like a candle flame blown out. Done.

That perhaps was his first moment as a beast. When the anger and fury within him made him lose his mind and he lunged toward Aegon. 

He and his half-brother were always enemies, always rivals. Aegon would bully him relentlessly all of their lives. And the advice was always the same, whether it came from Mother, Father, Aunt Elia, Rhaenys, Ser Arthur, or Ser Barristan: don’t let him provoke you. Hold strong and solid. Do not rise to his bait. He’d been made aware of the enchantments on Aunt Elia, Rhaenys, and Aegon as a small boy. And he always reminded himself of that to force his rage and sense of justice back down to his gut whenever his half-brother tried to goad him.

But it seemed like an animal, an animal born of all that swallowed rage and pain and sense of justice that he’d suppressed for so long came forth, and Jon, for the first time, found himself rushing at his half-brother with the intent to end him.

Some rational part of his brain must have still been there. Otherwise, surely he’d have attacked Obara, who was responsible for the curse itself, right? But Obara, Nym, and the other Sands… It didn’t take long for Jon growing up to see them as little more than extensions of their Father, Aunt, and cousins. They sensed a threat to Aegon, and they acted on it as an instinct. Jon could no more blame them for their magic than he could actual snakes for their poison. No, his mother died because Aegon forced a fight, and it was Aegon who deserved to pay. 

Thus, it was Aegon he went for.

After the fight itself, everyone was brought before the king to bear witness to what happened. And even the more credible ones seemed to say that what happened to Jon was “sudden”. That he and Ghost were flying backward one second, slamming against the armory wall and sinking down it the next, then there was some sort of odd melting for a couple seconds, then a quick flash, and there was the beast. Jon went from angry man to gigantic beast in less than a quarter minute.

Even Robb said so.

But it wasn’t so quick for Jon. Time seemed to slow down when he changed. He felt something hurtle into his chest, felt himself and Ghost fly through the air. Felt the impact of the wall. His first thought, as he sunk down, Ghost landing against him, was that his wolf had been injured or even killed, because he felt a hot oozing around him, as if the creature was bleeding out atop him. But when he looked down, he didn’t see red, he saw melting white.

Then he saw some red. A reddish tint seemed to overtake everything. Jon watched, trying desperately to scream, as Ghost seemed to swell, quiver, expand, come apart in his lap. How his solid companion seemed to become liquid and sink into him. How he watched a puddle of his direwolf stain not just his clothing, but his very flesh.

And the pain came. It grew, from a vague prickling of his skin he barely noticed amidst the sharp impact of the wall, to a violent sort of itching, to the sensation of being penetrated by thousands of tiny needles. Some of those needles seemed to form together, and his flesh seemed to stretch and rip. He was trying so hard to scream, but though his mouth seemed to force itself open, no sound came.

They said there was a “flash” of light, but Jon felt it more like an extended burn. There was light everywhere, as overwhelming as the pain. He felt like he was being visited by phantoms of agony he’d long since forgotten, buried within the haze of his infancy when his first baby teeth began to form. But these teeth just grew and grew to the point where he could catch two thick protrusions through his usual eyeline. His skin went through a cycle of rip and split, rip and split.

His fingers and toes felt like they were being stabbed from within and Jon watched his limbs with horror as his fingernails contracted and changed and grew and grew into silver claws. His skeleton seemed to be fighting to escape his flesh. He tried to battle it, tried to force his bones and skin where it belonged, but there was nothing he could do. His body was drowning in itself.

It wasn’t quick, it wasn’t quick at all. It didn’t seem to stop.

And when it did, the loss of the pain was so dramatic that it hurt him in its own way, rendering him immobile and unable to think. It took several seconds for him to hear the screams.

His first thought was that Ghost was gone. Robb, black-eyed, moved toward him hesitantly, and Jon tried --- oh, how he tried!--- to ask his cousin, his soul-brother, for help. 

Instead, he heard this monstrous roar, and saw one of his clawed hands rise violently. The roar, he realized, came from him.

He was called to court to bear witness to the incident, and when the likes of Joffrey Connington snidely recited his lies, Jon could do no more than roar and howl. 

Alone in his chambers, he didn’t know what to do. He tried to put on clothing and ripped every garment he had. He tried to ask the servants to help, but they couldn’t understand him and were afraid to get close. When one of them did get close, Jon, still used to moving like a man and thoroughly unused to having claws and the strength of a literal monster, injured them. He cried out to apologize, but they just heard more roars. Jon was trapped within himself. And he wanted so badly to die. 

Instead, Father tearfully exiled him. And he was approached by Oberyn and his daughters. Obara wept from remorse, and they promised to give him everything he needed. People at court whispered that they knew how to break the curse, but Jon doesn’t believe it. 

He was spirited out of the city to spare him the curious, horrified gazes of the crowds and brought to the Tower of Joy, the small fortress where his mother gave birth to him. And sprouted from the Dornish desert sands was a weirwood forest with its magic pool, and winter rose bushes. And as time went on, fields of grass, of wheat, of mountainous terrain, or red clay, of thick forests appeared around his new home. Running through them was the only thing that made sense.

It didn’t bother him, living so sparsely. The opulence of his father’s court never pleased him that much. His mother had little interest in it, either. Then again, given how people saw them, it didn’t exactly make the place all that appealing. The court was Elia’s domain, and none of them dared trespass. Their side of the family already did enough to encroach upon Elia Martell’s life just by existing.

Jon has never asked for much, and the tower and its surrounding were proof positive of that. Up until Sansa stepped into his domain and suddenly the ground began expanding, shifting, and sprouting things below and all around him.

He doesn’t mind it exactly. Really, it was more the duplicitous, judgmental courtiers that were the problem than the castle itself. And his new palace always leads him where he wants or needs to go anyways. It’s not as if he’ll get lost.

That being said, the new explosion of new fragrances that have come leave him dizzy. It reminds him of court, a bit. When he first turned and all of a sudden his new nose could smell everything, and he was overpowered by the stench of all those nobles’ colognes. 

This is at least in a more open setting, though. All those smells are from the source and are out in the fresh air. Not clinging to a bunch of bodies sweating beneath heavy silks and crammed into one room.

He’ll adjust. He always does. And this time, at least, there is a great consolation.

She’s filled this place with so many wonders of nature, and yet, even with her filthy riding leathers and knotted hair, she’s the most beautiful thing here.

But then, he expected that.

There are a few things that have always been here. Things Oberyn and Elia put in to keep him at least somewhat connected to the outside world. His mother raised him on the Old Gods of her ancestors, so they enchanted the godswood to be here, and the viewing pool. They probably expected him to look in on the court, on his siblings.

His humanity seemed to live in the pool, as if itself had transformed into a little fish that swam within the looking-waters. He paid it visits, but the beast seemed to reign. He’d often return to the magical pond to find that his little brother, still learning to count when the disaster happened, had grown an inch and a half from when Jon last saw him.

He definitely looks in on Ben, Danny, and Lyarra, but aside from that, he can’t stand to watch King’s Landing. Seeing his brother and uncle take advantage of his father and the court the way they did filled him with rage. Especially as winter came and they did nothing to help the North. And Jon could do nothing about it.

It has been the Starks that draw his eye, in those frustrating years. His mother always shared fond memories of her upbringing in the North, of her brothers. Adventurous Brandon, Serious Ned, and Playful Benjen, and, of course, of Winterfell, with its massive expanse, its hot springs, mysterious crypts, and its mystical godswood. 

Playful Ben took the Black and was no longer so playful, but Serious Ned remained serious. The surly Lord of Winterfell was dutiful, brave, and careful. 

And, Gods, how he loves Uncle Eddard’s family. His wife js admirable, elegant, and stern. The children are all, in their own way, as delightful as Robb. Arya reminded Jon so much that looking in on her is both irresistible and excruciating. Bran is such a sweet, yet adventurous soul, always climbing and seeking out new things. Rickon is as wild as his sister Arya, and has that certain childlike insight that always managed to get to the heart of things at the most inconvenient time. 

Then there is Sansa, the quietest, most forlorn of the bunch. While Arya reminded Jon of his mother, Sansa reminded Jon of his sister Danny and his half-sister Rhaenys. Danny, named for the Brave Danny Flint of the songs, always proved a disappointment to Mother, who wanted her girls to be as fierce and wild as she was. Lyarra certain lived up to this. But while Danny shared her mother’s passion for horses, the similarities ended there. She is the most Targaryen-looking of Rhaegar’s daughters, considered the Beauty of their generation. She’s quiet, composed, a perfectionist of the highest order, self-conscious, scholarly, and kind. 

In many ways, Danny is like their father, though far better behaved than Father ever was. She was always good at holding Jon, Robb, and their siblings back whenever Aegon tried to bait them. 

When Jon turned, all his family came to visit, but Danny was the only one who didn’t act afraid. Even Lyarra, who had been his best friend aside from Robb growing up, entered his chambers with her hand hovering over the hilt of her blade, dark eyes wide and nervous.

It was the way Sansa endured that struck Jon. The way she kept up her ladylike ways amidst the winter winds and cold. How she still conducted herself with genteel elegance even when she was called upon to act her most shrewd and tough. 

Watching the two Stark sisters work together was a thing of compelling beauty over the years. Jon watched the girls, different as could be, come together to do great things and get their family and people through the winter. It was the sort of understanding that Jon realized he’d always wanted for his mother and Danny. It hurts to think Mother never lived long enough for that to happen.

Before long, though, Jon’s interest in Sansa in particular took on a new dimension, one which filled him with shame. It happened in her fifteenth year or so. Jon had decided to look in on the Stark sisters casually, and willed the magic pool to show him --- only for him to come upon his red-haired cousin soaking in one of her home’s hot spring pools, naked as her Name Day. 

It wasn’t just that she was naked. It was also the moan that emanated from her bow-shaped lips when she sunk into the water, how she dipped her head back and closed her eyes. How her back arched, thrusting her pink-tipped breasts out. 

Of course it was all completely innocent on her end. She’d likely just spent hours sled-driving through a northern blizzard and was now finally getting sweet relief for her aching, frigid muscles. But there was no getting around the fact that she acted and looked just like a brothel girl writhing in ecstasy.

The amount of time it took Jon to realize what he was watching and turn away in shame was much too great. But even worse is the fact that he was never able to banish the image from his thoughts. 

His feelings for his cousin, who knew nothing of him aside from diplomatic reports, presented one of the few benefits of living in seclusion: he had no one to confess to, and he could not harm anyone with his feelings.

After a while, he did begin… indulging himself. Though the act was not quite the same as it had been before he’d transformed. His claws kept him from assuming the customary grip on himself, of course. Then there is his organ itself, which has acquired a layer of fur that has somewhat weakened the sensation. Even in seclusion, the act of relieving himself was humiliating, as he often found himself resorting to pressing himself against various objects, like Ghost as a pup. 

But he always consoled himself, in his shame, that at least no one could ever get close enough to witness this, or be harmed. The Lady herself need never be affected by his base, bestial lusts. She was all the way in Winterfell, amidst the icy hills and fields. He was in Dorne, enchanted away from the outside world...

Of course Father had to come to his senses at the worst time. Of course he had to decide to extend an olive branch by plotting some half-baked matches for the Stark girls and ask for their portraits. Of course Aegon and Viserys, slowly losing their power with the recovered Rhaegar, would decide to strike then. 

It’s practically an open secret that they killed Father, no matter how much denial poor Aunt Elia is living in. Sansa doesn’t know, and Jon isn’t sure he should tell her. What good would it do her to know?

And, despite how cut off she might feel here, Jon suspects that her family has more access to her than she realizes. The direwolf Summer smells… odd. There is something to that creature that gives Jon the impression that it held some sort of enchantment before it ever met Oberyn. The smell, in fact, reminds Jon somewhat of his magic looking-pool. 

All the wolves, actually, are special. Jon knows direwolves are intelligent, but both Ghost and Grey Wind were uncanny in the way they interacted with the world, and the pack Sansa has brought with her are no different. But Summer is singular even among them.

Jon was horrified when he observed the plotting of his half-brother. And when Aegon announced Sansa’s fate, Jon howled in horror.

He howled for poor Sansa, who should have had a glittering life ahead of her. He howled for her family. And he howled in terror. He’d spent so many years growing less and less human in spirit, in habit, developing his lusts for her, and he could not be certain he’d control himself around her. 

When he isn’t observing family members or contemplating his existence, Jon has allowed the Beast in him to take over. He’s become One with Ghost, not just physically. The enchanted home Oberyn built for him has mostly consisted of fields which he’d traversed, wolf-like, often spending days straight free of human thought or action. A wild beast. When he re-assumed his human mindset, his animalistic instincts kicked in more and more. When he observed some of his brother or uncle’s more distasteful acts, for instance, he’d finds himself pouncing right into the pool to attack them, his human rationality having fled. He’s become far too comfortable pissing and shitting on whatever patch of ground he’s circled a few times.

And he hasn’t worn a stitch of clothing in seven years. 

He tried desperately to think of a way to save his cousin, but he got nowhere. Perhaps if he weren’t such a beast, he might have.

Then the ground started shifting and Jon knew it was too late, that she was entering his domain forever. His first instinct was to just avoid her altogether, to keep away from all the newly-enchanted areas that sprung up to accommodate her. But then her scent--- even amongst the overpowering tidal wave of new fragrances that hit his nose as the gardens began to erupt -- came to him, and he knew. There was no staying away.

His understanding of proper etiquette drilled into him from years as a prince were buried beneath seven years of beast instincts, but some aspect of them rose and his home led him from there. He found that a bedchamber for him had sprouted amidst the new palace that had grown from his tower, complete with a wardrobe. A suit of clothes waited for him upon his new bed, and Jon found the clothes flying up and winding their way awkwardly around him. He was happy for it, feeling that the awkward garb might serve as a constant reminder of his vital humanity while interacting with his cousin. He tried teaching himself how to speak again, but barely managed to form a few words, and always preceded by sputtering as his always-open lips, over-sized tongue and gums tried to maneuver around them. The common tongue was built solely for human mouths.

The roses were something from before she came. Mother ordered roses by the tonne from her homeland, but the blue blooms, once delivered, rarely lasted long in the King’s Landing climate and refuses to grow. She often lamented the lost joys of the blue winter roses which Father crowned her with. They were, to Jon, always a magical flower.

So when he arrived at the Tower of Joy, the rose bushes were waiting for him near the godswood, and it was there that Jon shed most of his tears for his mother. There he often felt the most human. Where he remembered that as lonely as he is now, he’d once been loved passionately, unconditionally, by a remarkable woman. 

And that’s where he came upon Sansa, who, amidst all that had grown and appeared before her, was drawn to the bushes. Not the new palace, or hedge maze, or fountains. The Winter Roses. 

Even more devastating, she was making a circlet of them when Jon arrived.

Mother, always quick to her leathers and mail, always did one thing whenever a set of decent Winter rose blooms arrived. Something that was as gentle and feminine as anything Aunt Elia did. She’d take the salvageable blossoms, weave them into one or more crowns, and arrive at court to display herself. It used to make Father’s whole face light up. Sometimes, if she had enough, she’d make crowns for Jon and the girls as well.

When he came upon Sansa with the ring of blossoms in hand, she looked up at him with Danny’s sad, gentle, brave eyes. 

He’s been trying so hard. She’s trying to teach him to speak again. She thinks he’s more man than monster. And she’s interested in knowing him. There are some reservations, certainly, but she  approaches him with the same resilient, gentle courage with which she drove her wolf and sled into icy winds.

He knocked her into the pool, like an idiot. Forgetting, once again, that he’s so much stronger than he should be. He’d wanted to pat her on the shoulder to comfort her, not send her face-first into a pond.

And he ran from her, like a coward. It’s just so natural for him, to run. It’s all he’s done for the past seven years, aside from weep over his loved ones.

It was her kindness, her concern, that undid him. Even now, she’s such a  _ lady,  _ even in her sandy, dirty riding clothes.

She didn’t like speaking of Jon or Robb much during the winter, Jon knows that. But she must have thought of him, to be so kind now, in the face of, well,  _ him.  _

He’d pushed her into a pond, and her response was, “You poor thing!” She seemed to have anticipated so many things that he himself had yet to get used to: the mechanics of his strange body, his strength, his speech issues. And she told him he didn’t have to dress, the dear thing!

When she said that, he almost forgot his beast-ness. He’d certainly forgotten his beast mouth and lungs, because his mind flew to his monstrous genitals. It had been one thing to have them flying free when he was alone, charging across the magical fields. But he was certainly not going to expose himself to his lady cousin!

It was this recollection of human modesty that, tragically, summoned that guttural sound from him and made her recoil slightly. He can’t blame her. It took him by surprise as well. But that moment of shock just broke him, and he fled. 

Her fear is his greatest one. The idea of her recoiling from him, seeing him as a threat, is his every nightmare.

She’s stuck here in exile. In no small part thanks to him. 

Aegon sent her here to be devoured by him. To be brutalized, raped, eaten. To make her remaining days long and miserable. For a Stark to punish a Stark for the insults of their forebears. And in this, Jon wants so badly to defy his brother, as this is perhaps the one way he can. But it’s not enough not to brutalize, rape, or eat her. Jon wants, nay,  _ needs  _ his cousin to find some happiness with him so that his half-brother’s depraved machinations can backfire. So that Jon, in some way, can not be a monster. So Sansa doesn’t have her goodness repaid with misery.

That’s not possible if she’s afraid of him.

Jon grew up never liking the status and expectations that came with being a prince. It erected a wall between himself and other people’s true selves. Do these people like him, or do they just want to be liked by a prince? Have I really progressed in my combat training, or did my opponent let me win because of who my father is? He envied Robb’s lordling status. Robb was heir to one of the highest seats in the Seven Realms, sure, but no one who deferred to the Starks of the North inhabited the Red Keep, and he possessed no title or standing that elevated him “above” anyone else.

But with Sansa, for the first time, he wants to be a prince. A proper prince, the sort of archetype he used to mock Danny for idolizing. He wants to be a gallant gentleman, and please her. He wants her joy here to go beyond whatever the castle creates for her, because regardless, this is an isolated existence. And Jon knows firsthand how agonizing such loneliness should be. It’s a poor state of affairs that he is what she has for companionship, but that is how things are.

How can he possibly be a decent companion as a monster?

There’s more man left in him than he thought. But he feels almost as if the man within him is trapped. He can’t tell her much. His claws grow too large, sharp, and fast for him to write properly. 

Sansa may have spent the last several years mushing through blizzards to deliver supplies, but Jon knows the truth of things. She’s a finely educated, refined, cultured woman of sophisticated tastes. Jon used to watch her when she embarked on long missions with her sister and made camp. Arya would get out her blades, check and sharpen them all. Sansa would get out a book. Sometimes she’d read to her sister, often from books she’d selected specifically to cater to Arya’s tastes. Sometimes, Jon would curl at the edge of the looking-pool and pretend he was there with them, curling up together, sharing body heat, and that Sansa was reading to him as well as her sister.

This girl seemed to know a thousand stories, a thousand traditions, a thousand facts about a thousand places. When her eyes were too tired to read by firelight, she’d tell her sister of places like Braavos and Qaarth, and tell her about their legends, the gods they worshipped, their ceremonies, their lives. 

Jon sometimes watched her when she had her portrait done. She impressed the artist with her knowledge of pigments and artistic styles. She may have spent her adolescence in an icy tundra, but she was bred and raised for high court life. She knows it, and she longed for it. She deserves it.

He can never give her that. 

A few times, when he was waiting for her, he’d will the castle to produce some books that pertained to things she’d probably like to discuss. But he’d shred the pages as he tried to turn them, and couldn’t get comfortable reading them. His body wanted to run and writhe and slash at things. The red-tinged sight of his beastly eyes made the words a little more difficult to make out, and the prolonged concentration it took to squint out the figures hurt his head. He felt like an utter fool.

Eventually, the books stopped appearing, as both he and the castle had given up.

He’s ashamed of that, too. 

But… gods… How is he to make it through this? 

There are bright spots that become apparent almost immediately. As he explored the new home Sansa’s mind had conjured, he recognized bits and pieces of Winterfell here and there, pieces of other castles he’s either visited or read about in books. A whole new world of flora and fauna and art was suddenly before him. Sansa had brought beauty with her. And Jon feels he can get lost in it as much as he can get lost in his long, animal runs. 

He gets so engrossed in observing all the lovely new things his home had become that he barely notices when the sun begins to set. And once he does, a certain elation hits him. He’s spent hours thinking and admiring, as a man would, lovely, interesting things, instead of just running wild like an animal. And it didn’t bother him. Perhaps… Perhaps…

His stomach is growling, too. He’s not felt true hunger to such an extent in years. As a beast, his instincts to immediately kill and eat whatever the castle puts in his path the moment the slightest desire for sustenance hits him take over and he finds himself feasting on an animal corpse before he knows it. He’s not had the humanity to ignore a craving since he arrived here. But looking upon the lovely greenery, he’s managed, as a man might.

_ I’ve waited until supper time. _

He feels a bit more confident at this thought. And he feels a strange pull towards the castle. 

Somehow, instinctively, he knows that his meal will not be a conjured rabbit, bleeding between his jaws. But that he’ll be having a proper dinner, at a table and everything, within the castle.

There is some panic, of course. Does he even remember how to eat like a man? Can he hold a knife and fork? But the strange miracle of his hours of man-thought, even at the cost of his appetite, give him some confidence. 

He even changes for dinner. Or, rather, he thinks about it and the castle goes to work, swirling garments around him as he walks down a hall he knows lead to a dining chamber. The castle leads you. It always has. He even manages to consistently walk on two legs the entire time he is indoors.

Jon finds himself in a sumptuous dining chamber with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking part of the garden, gilded chairs and table, and mint colored wallpaper. Gold plate glittered atop the silk tablecloth and napkins, and covered platters steamed at the center of the table. There are two settings, the chair for one considerably larger than the other.

Sitting like a man is awkward, as Jon has taken to sitting like a wolf: back legs bent and tucked behind front limbs, planted on the ground. It took him several moments to find a comfortable position for his tail. The smell of the food is distracting, but he makes himself wait. Like a gentleman.

He nearly jumps out of his chair when he hears the door open, but stops himself until he remembers the rule about gentlemen rising when ladies exited or entered a room, rose or took a seat from the table. So he gets to only two of his feet and debates smiling.

But thoughts of that vanish when he sees her.

Oberyn’s enchantments are apparently quite effective at catering to the needs of a refined young lady. Sansa enters with her auburn hair draping down her back in soft waves, pulled away from her face with a ribbon as creamy as her skin. She is gowned in shimmering, off-white satin with little pearls running along the trim, her gown cut and styled to show off every inch of her long, curved figure. Out of her bulky traveling garb, Jon can make out the indentation of her tiny waist, her bosom, and the flair of her hips. 

She looks so soft, so shining, so pure and precious. Every inch of her sings a single word: “Female.” 

Jon pulls at the hem of his doublet nervously as his pants tighten.  _ Oh no. _ Images of her in the bath, moaning at the hot water, pink-tipped breasts sticking out proudly, are superimposed upon the vision she presents now. Jon’s mouth waters, and with the structure of his mouth, that made it near-impossible not to drool.

She curtsies, and he nearly faints as her chest dips and he glimpses down her square neckline. 

He hears the beast within him growl.  _ Female in full breeding phase. Right before us. _

“Prince Jon,” she murmurs, “I hope you are feeling better this evening.”

He lets out a growl before he can stop himself, forgetting that he can’t say, “Yes, my lady”. So he nods stiffly, then hurries to her seat to pull the chair out for her. 

To his relief, she doesn’t hesitate to slip into the chair. “Thank you. Dinner smells delicious.”

Jon wouldn’t know what to say even if he could say it, so he hurries back to his own chair. The platter covers float into the air, revealing braised lamb with mint jelly, asparagus steamed in butter, a collection of sliced berries, a creamy soup, and a veritable mountain of lemon cakes.

The food begins serving itself, and Sansa claps her hands in delight. “So many of my favorites!” She exclaims as the creamy soup --- crab, by the scent of it --- pours itself into her golden bowl. “The Manderlys used to ship us crab and shrimp dishes before winter hit! I forgot how I missed it! You truly live in a wondrous place, my prince!”

Jon nods awkwardly, eyeing the lamb with some hesitation. He’s lost his taste for cooked meat over the years. Anything that doesn’t gush with blood just tastes… wrong… as if spoiled.

And, cooked or uncooked, he’s never exactly been partial to lamb. 

And soup! Why, of all the shellfish dishes she supposedly loved getting from the Manderlys, did the castle have to produce soup? Chewing is hard enough, but Jon’s mouth is literally incapable of closing all the way. He eyes the soup pouring into his bowl like a traitor.

“Are… are you having difficulties?” She asks timidly.

Jon looks to his lovely guest and sighs, shoulders rising and falling. 

“Is it the utensils, or the food itself?”

Jon forgot all about the utensils. But when he eyes the spoon, it seems to taunt him. Gold is a soft metal, he could easily bend it in his hand by gripping it too tight.

He points to the utensils, then to the soup itself, indicating both. Sansa sighs. 

“Would it be easier to just… pour it in? Drink directly from the bowl? I won’t mind.”

_ But you’ll mind seeing half the contents spill all over my fur and get it all matted and fish-smelling _ , he wants to say. 

“It’s okay if you make a mess. I’ll just try to be dainty enough for both of us.”

A sweet sentiment, and likely a truthful one, but that doesn’t erase the embarrassment. 

Sensing his hesitance, perhaps, Sansa sets her spoon down, lifts the bowl, and tips it into her mouth. She doesn’t spill a drop, of course, and still daintily wipes her lips with a napkin once she’s finished. But still…

“Would you like me to eat with my fingers?”

Jon cannot hide his smile, even if his version of a smile is considerably more menacing than a normal one. But she seems to understand, for she wraps her knuckles against the table surface and commands, “Away with these!”

The twinkling cutlery vanishes from both their places. Jon stifles a (disturbing) laugh, but a thought occurs to him. 

“Guh---guh---” No! He focuses on the back of his mouth. “Kuh---cudd--- cut!”

He takes a deep breath at the little triumph, and tries to persevere. “Cut!” He points to the platter of lamb. He concentrates on his lips, forcing them together. “Vnnn--- mmmm--- eee----eed--- eat---- mmmuh-eat! Cuht meat!”

He takes a deep breath and manages an, “‘ow? ‘Ow cut meat?”

Growing up, Robb teased him for being soft-spoken. His father came to him several times, informing him that he’d been similarly shy as a lad, but that he grew from it. But as the years went by, even Rhaegar seemed impatient with his shyness. He tended to hold big talkers (with exceptions for people like Robb, whom he liked) in a certain disdain. He’d been proud of his soft-spokenness. 

Now he curses himself for all the things he left unsaid. All the ‘I love you’s’ he could have given his mother and siblings. To Robb. Perhaps he might have even reached out to Aegon. Because back then, his tongue could have articulated so, so much. Now he’s reduced to stuttering like an infant with its mouth full.

_ But, my lady, without a knife, how will you break your meat into digestible pieces?  _ Is what he wants to ask. She doesn’t have literal jaws. Her teeth are small and straight and lovely, like pearls. 

But he is stuck with “‘Ow cut meat?”

However, she applauds. “That was wonderful, Jon!”

It’s a little patronizing, to say the least. Not that he thinks she mean to be, but that actually makes it worse.

He’d rather she answer the question. “‘Ow cut meat?”

It’s almost impossible to make that sound polite.

She blushes prettily. “I will tear it apart with my fingers.”

Jon shakes his head and taps the table. Cutlery appears at her place.

“You want me to eat normally?”

He nods.

“Alright, but only if you agree to eat as you normally would and make peace with it. We can come up with monster table manners once we’ve mastered speech, alright?”

Jon doesn’t want her to see him like this, but he can tell she is quite determined. Thinking quickly, he points to her, then dramatically looks off to the side, as if averting his eyes.

“You don’t want me to look?”

He nods.

“Then how shall we communicate if I cannot see you nod or shake your head?”

He thinks on this. Then he grunts twice and nods. Then grunts once, and shakes his head.

“Two grunts for yes, one grunt for no?”

Playfully, he grunts twice.

She grunts twice in response. “Very well then.”

He waits until she has her eyes glued determinedly to the surface of her soup to tip his bowl back. Gods, he’s forgotten the joys of shellfish. It isn’t bad cooked, the way meat can be. 

He checks her constantly, to make sure she is not looking, when he wipes and licks up the soup that has spilled about his jaws. When it comes time for the main course, he taps the table and his cooked lamb is replaced at once with a large, bloody leg of venison.

The castle is kind enough to replace his double when he finishes.

To his surprise, when dessert comes, Sansa pounces upon the plate of lemon cakes and shovels them into her mouth like a seasoned animal. It’s only when she’s swallowed several mouthfuls and closed her eyes for several seconds, as if praying, that she looks at him shyly. “Pardons, my prince, but I have a particular love for lemon cakes, and it’s the one delight I allow myself to abandon all manners for.”

This time, he can’t stifle his laugh.  _ Fair enough,  _ he wants to tell her,  _ you should be allowed at least one course to eat as sloppily as I do. _

There are so many other things he wants to tell her, too. 

“Well,” she says, primly dabbing at her mouth and turning in her seat, “Now that we’ve eaten, shall we have our first speaking lesson?”

~_~_~_~_~_~

They focus on two hard consonants a night. D’s and K’s and T’s and the like. They take their lessons in the library, and she holds out books for him to read from and recite. Vowel sounds, they discover, he has no trouble with, save for the long ones.

Anything involving too much lip--- B’s, M’s and such, are absolute trials. H’s are the ultimate summit: the last dragon to conquer. 

It’s not just speech they work at, they come up with signs and sounds. Knocking on wood, finger points, waves, pitches, the like. 

Sansa’s clever and creative with it, observant and mindful of his abilities and limitations. 

It makes him laugh when he thinks of his brother, who sentenced Sansa here to create a horrible tragedy. Who sought to make him more of a monster.  _ You sent me a beautiful blessing, brother. She makes me more a man every day. _

His joy in her is wholly selfish, he knows this. She tries to hide her tears, but he can hear her during those late nights. The walls of the enchanted castle become very thin on the nights she weeps for her family. 

She doesn’t weep every night. And she seems to find some joy and fulfillment in her life here. There is genuine happiness when Jon manages to overcome a new hurdle in his struggle for verbal communication. He can smell it on her. She gazes upon the things his home has created for her with genuine wonder. She seems to genuinely take comfort in his company. 

But it’s not the same, it never will be, and they both know it. This is not the life she envisioned for herself, this is not the life she deserves. She deserves one where she can see her family, and build one of her own. Where she can speak to other human beings without roadblocks. Where she can actually see beautiful places, not just enchanted imitations of them. A life that allows her the comfort of a proper embrace and a world she knows. 


	4. Say It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon reflects on his life and all the things he's afraid to say as he regains his ability to speak.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, I'm still looking for a beta if anyone is interested!

Jon:

As he re-learns to speak, he’s reminded of the fear of saying certain things.

Growing up, there were so many topics he feared broaching. Understanding the circumstances of his parents’ marriage was a gradual process for him. He always knew his father had two wives, of course, just like Aegon the Conqueror. But at some point he realized that Father was the only man he knew who did, and discovered how that came to be.

At first, it seemed very romantic and adventurous to him: a lady defying her father, running off with the prince she loved rather than marry the traitor she didn’t. His royal father fighting a rebellion to have her. A secret tower just for them. 

Almost everyone he knew spoke of it as a love story: all the courtiers, servants, and especially his father. But he began to notice that whenever anyone  _ did  _ speak of it, it was whenever Aunt Elia and her family were out of earshot. 

It seemed odd, but he didn’t realize it was necessarily something bad at first. Aunt Elia was so kind and gentle, and everyone seemed to love her. She spent many evenings on the big, fireside rug in the nursery, lying flat on her stomach and playing with him and all his siblings, half and full, telling them stories and helping them build castles out of their blocks or referee battles between their wooden knights. On one such night when he was six, he asked her, during a pretend game about knights rescuing maidens, if she was there when his parents met.

He’ll never forget the look in his stepmother’s dark, doe-like eyes, or how her olive skin seemed to go pale, how her lips became thin, bloodless lines. “Yes,” she whispered, suddenly setting the doll she’d been playing flat on the rug and uneasily getting to her feet. “I’m sorry, my darlings, but I seem to feel a chill coming on, I--- I think I should get some rest.”

At first, Jon thought everyone’s fearful expressions were over Aunt Elia’s chill. His stepmother was prone to illness and at that point had already started using her wheeled chair sometimes to get around. But when she left, Septa Rosa came over, ripped him from the rug harshly, scolded him, and forced him to go to bed early. 

The next morning, he woke to Mama sitting on his bed and nudging him awake, looking pensive. 

“Jon, your Aunt Elia told me what happened last night, and I think it’s time you know the whole truth about how Mama and Papa got married. We… We hurt people.”

“The rebels?” He asked, confused. He knew his father was a great warrior, and that mother was fierce, and both would make anyone who threatened their family pay. But the way she said this told him that she wasn’t referring to such a scenario.

“Not just them.” His fierce Mama, usually so brazen and bold, hesitated and trembled slightly. Her voice choked up slightly. “We hurt your Aunt Elia, and a lot of other good people, too.”

She retold the story, not as some forbidden love adventure, but as a misdeed that spun out of control. 

When she finished, Jon, with a child’s typical self-obsession, timidly asked, “Is that why Aegon won’t be my friend?”

He and Aegon are almost the same age, usually the perfect circumstances for two boys to be inseparable. But Aegon called him “Dogboy” and “Bastard” and always tried to wreck all the playtime he was forced to share with Jon by cheating and playing tricks. During their earliest years, Jon desperately wanted to earn his brother’s love, but couldn’t. 

Robb arrived when Jon was five, and with his cousin, Jon found the brother he’d always dreamt of. A full year later, he’d grown less and less interested in earning his half-brother’s approval, preferring to spare himself the hurt and spend time with Robb instead. Robb was bold and strong and outgoing, and being with him made Jon feel braver. And when Aegon bullied him, Robb was always ready to jump in and throw insults right back in Aegon’s face.

Jon’s cousin slowly got him to realize that his half-brother wasn’t worth it, didn’t have the right to treat him so. As a result, by six, the sting of Aegon’s rejection didn’t get to him too much. But he felt it resurface as he realized that there was something behind that hostility.

After his conversation with his mother, he tried approaching his brother in the gardens, walking up to him and whispering, “I’m sorry my Mama and Papa hurt your Mama to be together.”

Aegon glared at him. “If you’re really sorry, you’ll go die! Like the dog you really are!”

Jon never tried to be friends with his brother again, but a certain guilt did change his behavior somewhat. He started holding Robb back when his cousin would respond angrily to one of Aegon’s taunts, stopped reporting his bullying to the grown-ups so much, made Robb promise not to snitch as well. 

There was one particularly bad incident when they were eleven, during a hunting trip in the Kingswood, in which an arrow missed Jon’s head by about an inch. Both he and Robb looked over to see Aegon and Uncle Viserys just a few yards away, laughing atop their saddles as Viserys fiddled with his crossbow.

Robb yelled. “You tried to kill him!”

“Don’t be ridiculous! It was an  _ accident!”  _ Viserys cried.

“It was  _ not!”  _ Robb went to Ser Arthur and Mama, telling them what happened. Everyone was pulled before Father, who looked gravely at Jon.

“Is this true? Did your uncle try to shoot you?” Rhaegar asked, leaning down and looking into Jon’s eyes. Jon felt everyone’s gaze upon him and his stomach sank.

“H-he said it was an accident,” Jon whispered, terrified.

“But you know it wasn’t!” Robb cried out, sounding betrayed, “Jon, tell him the truth!”

“He did!” Aegon snapped, “It  _ was  _ an accident!”

“Jon, are you sure that it was?” Father asked. No, not Father. The king. The king asked. 

“It-it could have been, I think.”

Sighing, the king leaned back and glared at his brother. “You’re an excellent shot, Viserys, we all know this. So regardless of what my clearly nervous boy may say, I find it very hard to believe that a bolt from your bow could  _ accidentally _ fire so close to him.”

“I  _ am  _ a great marksman,” Viserys preened. He never missed an opportunity to boast. “But if anything, that just lends credence to what I say. With my skills, if I wanted to shoot my Northern nephew, it would have hit. It missed. And I do not miss my targets, ever.”

“But you’re clumsy enough to  _ accidentally  _ let off a shot that nearly kills my son?” Mama cried out furiously, walking forward and encircling Jon protectively in her arms in a way that embarrassed him. “Even if you didn’t intend to kill him, you wanted to scare him. Your arrow went where you meant it to, and you meant to target my boy!”

Viserys glanced sideways at Lyanna, annoyed, but addressed his next, low words to his brother. “Your Grace, your wife is clearly hysterical. Maybe she and the rest of the Stark pups should be dismissed?”

Rhaegar glared. “Viserys, my wife is not hysterical, she is right. I’m sending you to Dragonstone for the next year. I don’t want you near any of my children.”

“But Father!” Aegon cried out, “That’s not fair! Uncle Viserys is my best friend!”

“Exactly,” Rhaegar snapped. “My word is final. And I am cutting this hunting party short. We’re heading back to the Red Keep at once.”

Viserys was sent packing almost at once, and Aegon came to Jon’s chambers to scream at him for “tearing House Targaryen apart even more!” 

Viserys did return a year later, playing at contrition and goodness. “Even worse than threatening poor Prince Jon, I corrupted your elder son and heir, Prince Aegon, with my poor character. Most of all, I wish to undo that damage. I hope I might have the opportunity to personally show my future king that what I taught him before is not the way.”

By that point, Aegon had struck up a friendship with the even-worse Joffrey Connington. Clearly hoping that Viserys would draw Aegon from that sadistic boy’s influence, Father agreed.

Viserys kept up the act for a whole year, seeming to not only make Aegon better, but also improving the character of the Connington boy as well. But secretly, all Viserys was teaching them was how to get away with their misdeeds without the adults knowing. The true nature of his “redemption” only started showing itself well after, and gradually. Even when people seemed to accept that Viserys was as duplicitous as ever, they still seemed to think he kept Aegon “under control” because he and his friends weren’t getting into as many fistfights or torturing as many animals as they used to.

People acted like the malice of Jon’s brother was simply something to be managed or controlled until he grew out of it. All getting older actually did was make Aegon more independent and smarter about how he went about things. He was nearing manhood, no longer had to spend all his time under the watchful eye of governesses, tutors, or his mother. And he was charming enough to make people ignore his behavior to some extent. 

No one wanted to talk about it. Everyone seemed afraid to admit that the Crown Prince was not going through a ‘phase’, but had grown truly malicious. Aunt Elia seemed the only one with some truly positive influence on her son, but as the years went by, her control over Aegon deteriorated along with her already-delicate health to the point where she was permanently bound to her chair.

Everyone,  _ everyone  _ kept expecting her to die at any moment. Father tried to convince her to take some time off from her work governing, but she sharply rebuffed this advice. It was reported that that was the first time since Father returned to the Red Keep with Lyanna and Jon after the rebellion that she raised her voice to her husband, shouting that she would not ‘fade away’ like he wanted her to. 

People said her brother and his daughters kept her going with their magic. 

To this day, Jon isn’t sure why they didn’t also use their magic to control Aegon better. Maybe, like everyone else, they were in denial, afraid to admit what was really happening.

The Red Keep was already a place that didn’t much care for the truth, and this was a particularly uncomfortable truth.

Only Mama and Robb ever seemed to discuss it, and even they only did so when they were out of earshot of the courtiers. 

Perhaps Jon should resent his family for not facing the facts and handling it before disaster struck, but he feels hypocritical for doing so. His guilt over his origins his overall weariness with the whole situation, and, yes, his own fears also kept him quiet. He told himself that he was the last person who should be making the first move. After all, how would it look for the second-in-line to come forward and call his older brother a knave? Everyone would assume the worst of his motives, not least because of whose sons they were. The son of the beloved Elia being decried by the son of Lyanna, who had tried to supplant Elia all those years ago? No, it was not his place. He had to trust his parents or Aunt Elia to do something.

There were times he was tempted, though. Robb, Mama, and his sisters were not the only people who listened to him. Father did. Jon and Rhaegar were close. One of his earliest memories is of his father holding Jon in his lap, reading to him from a massive book before them, letting him turn the pages with his chubby little hands.

It occurred to him every so often that he should discuss Aegon with Father, but fear always held him back. Fear that Father would assume the worst of Jon the way everyone else would, and that their closeness would be severed. That it might even damage things between Father and Mama. Even as a lad, Jon realized how much of his mother’s security rested with the king’s love for her. The people didn’t loathe Lyanna (when she first arrived in King’s Landing, it was said the people hissed at her in the streets, but they eventually calmed themselves), but they just seemed to tolerate her. It wasn’t just the nature of her marriage, but that she had strange, Northern ways and didn’t act like a real queen. She rode astride, carried a blade like a man, was constantly escaping out to the woods to ride and hunt and such, and worshipped strange gods. 

Queen Elia might be Dornish, but not only was she a pious follower of The Seven, but she acted like a real queen. She rode side-saddle on the rare occasions she was on horseback, she left the weapons to the men, she went out into the city streets to greet the people and distribute alms, she sewed, she was quiet and gentle. Not even the common knowledge of the extent of her political power and place on the council was met as suspect, since she was so giving and sweet. Every time there was some major change that directly affected the lowborn positively, it was attributed to her. Not unfair, mostly, as Elia cared deeply about the common folk, took her duties to them seriously, and usually was either the architect or major supporter of reforms. Jon later learned that in Dorne, certain aspects of noblesse oblige, which were more unenforced guidelines in most of Westeros, were outright law in Dorne. 

She also kept court as a typical queen and gleefully operated among the aristocracy. She was one of the few Martells the Tyrells would seriously talk to after Willas’s leg was crushed. She had a large circle of friends and allies in the Red Keep. But Lyanna cared nothing for the opinions of ‘spoiled, privileged lordlings’, as she called them, and prefered spending her time amongst nature and her children to charming the rich and powerful.

Her position was bound to Rhaegar’s passions for her, which were considerable. Everyone knew better than speak ill of Queen Lyanna when and where the king might hear, for he would not hesitate to banish the offender from court. He adored his second queen, practically worshipped her. Some people whispered that the strange Northern Queen used strange, Northern magic to bewitch him.

But as he grew older, even Jon began to worry about his father possibly losing his passion for his mother. Or his affection for Jon. What that might mean. One of the thing Rhaegar often praised his Stark family for was being ‘different’ from the others, not being scheming, not playing the game all the time. But if Jon asked his father to act against Aegon, what might he think?

So he didn’t. He didn’t say a word. 

Sometimes he wonders if everything that’s happened to him, to Robb, to his mother, is a punishment from the gods for not speaking up. Aegon, after all, was the future king, and letting him do as he wished meant subjecting Westeros to a cruel, impulsive king. Their failure to act could cause the suffering of countless people. And it was the sacred duty of royalty to protect the realm. It was literally one of the kingly titles. He was never king, never would be, but as a prince, he had a duty to use his voice to help his people.

But he didn’t use his voice, and thus, it was taken from him.

He’s spent years berating himself for not saying things because he was afraid. All those fears seemed petty and unacceptable.

But now that he’s starting to regain his ability to speak again, he’s beginning to remember just how frightening it can be to say hard things.

Sansa spends some nights weeping. He hears it, he can smell her tears from across the castle. After she arrived, she made daily, private visits to the godswood to kneel by the looking-pool and plead with it to show her her family. More than once, Jon caught her bursting into tears and pounding on the dirt by the edge of the pond, pleading with it to work for her.  It just wouldn’t, for some reason. As the months went by, she started going only every other day, then once a week, then once a fortnight, and so on and so forth. 

His speech progresses, to the point where he can conduct verbal conversations, albeit with a thick accent and a few sounds dropped. And he knows he should talk to her about this. About her pain, her longing for home, the looking-pool. He’s gone to it several times and howled at it to show Sansa what she wants to see. He’s tried willing the castle to build another looking-pool just for her. But in an enchanted place that grants both of them everything else they so much as imagine, this one thing is stubbornly denied.

It occurs to him early on to look  _ for  _ her and recount what he sees, but when it first does, he’s still not progressed enough in his speaking to do so properly. Once he’s reached a level where he’s confident that he can at least give her a suitable rudimentary description, he offers to do so at the dinner table. 

At this point, Sansa’s been with him for six moons, and has almost completely stopped going to the godswood. She looks at him in alarm, then stares at her soup.

“No, no, that’s alright, Jon,” she says, “I… I think doing that would only make things worse. Watching you watch what I can’t see, hanging only on a second-hand account. It… It would be torture.”

“Iff you ‘aynnn-juh your mmm--minduh,” Jon replies, still not having mastered H-consonant sounds, “Tell mmmme.”

She nods, but doesn’t say anything else. She’s quiet for the rest of the meal, staring at her plate, and when they’re done, asks to skip the lesson that evening.

“I have a terrible headache and think I should retire early, get some rest.”

Of course he agrees, knowing the source of the headache. After that, they never speak of it again.

Jon starts avoiding the looking-pool too. It doesn’t seem fair to indulge in its comforts when Sansa cannot. And he’s come to resent it on her behalf.

He’s too afraid to broach the topic of her missing her family, or her tears. That pain almost seems like a secret, her own precious thing to share when she wishes. Jon is afraid to pry, to venture where she does not wish him to. To jeopardize their growing bond.

Jon tells her things, though. Sometimes, he hopes talking to her about his own feelings will encourage her to share that pain with him. So he tells her about missing Robb, losing his mother, Aegon bullying him, about being the prince favored by his father and unfavored by everyone else for exactly that reason. About his loneliness. About missing his siblings.

Even when he shares things she can obviously relate to, though, she withholds anything beyond general statements like, “I miss my own family terribly” and “I hope they’re okay.”

Not that she shares nothing. She tells him of growing up and the expectations she was under. About her awful Septa, her fear of failure, the terrible cold, hunger, and desperation she felt during winter. How she sometimes wanted to give up hope. About her mother’s accident.

Sometimes, when talking to him about her upbringing and the pressures of it, she will stop mid-sentence. They’ll be walking among a tulip field and she’ll be treading gracefully, a basket in one hand, gardening scissors in another, and she’ll be speaking. “And anything I did wrong was everything that defined everything else, no matter my triumphs elsewhere. Any perceived failing was terrifying, was the thing that would bring about my end and my family’s end for sure. That everyone in the North was counting on me because---”

And she stops short, looks nervous, then follows it up with, “---Because Winter was Coming.”

Jon might be a beast, but he’s not stupid. He could smell her concern. She’d been growing more emotional, more open, more agitated in confessing how oppressive and unforgiving her childhood could be. She almost said something she felt she shouldn’t. She stopped herself on purpose.

“Izzat all zair was?” He asks, not buying it, “It wazzzz-nnn’tuh jjjusssstuh ackual winn-terr, was it?”

“Well, I felt like I was being judged differently than my sister,” she ventures cautiously, “They wanted her to be perfect, too, but when she got in trouble, which was all the time, I got blamed too. I hated her for that sometimes. Because no matter how perfect I was, Arya would always ruin it for me. And I envied her, too, because she was so willing to flout it all. She just did as she wished, didn’t care what they thought. And I couldn’t do the same.”

Jon can tell that all this was true, but he also suspects there’s something more that she won’t say.

They’re both afraid of voicing difficult truths, it seems.

If Jon were a better man, beast, whatever, he’d be brave enough to press things, lead them into these conversations. But he’s not. He’s too afraid she’ll run from him. Sansa has faced winter blizzards, bears, icy roads, malicious kings, and mysterious magic. She may not be afraid of his claws or fangs or size, but she’s not fearless. It’s the emotional injury that frightens her.

And she already suffers enough of that.

Jon hears her cry, and wishes desperately to embrace her. But he can’t do more than offer his arm without risk to her. His arms are strong enough to bruise and even crush her, he could easily scrape her with his claws accidentally. The moment he accidentally pushed her into the looking-pool on her first day here was the second-most frightening moment in his life, and since then, he’s done no more than lead her on his arm. If he hurt her, he could never forgive himself. Just the thought of seeing that creamy skin torn apart or purpled haunts his nightmares. 

Not to mention, she seems to have noticed his reticence, and like it, be relieved by it. So Jon knows better than to think trying anything else is a good idea.

It can be torture, though. True torture. Sometimes he curses Oberyn’s magic for giving her so much. So many means to look so exquisite in so many different ways. Jon’s never so much as entered her bedchamber, but he suspects that the closet the castle has made for her is at least the size of the queen’s ballroom in the Red Keep, given how many dresses, cloaks, gloves, scarves, shoes and such she seems to have. 

Jon is no newcomer to finery. He did, after all, grow up at court. But his mother and the elder of his sisters, Lyarra, had no interest in it, and Danny only had a moderate one, so he wasn’t accustomed to being so close to it. Aunt Elia, Aunt Daenerys, Rhaenys, and Nym Sand had dazzling wardrobes, but they weren’t the women he was closest to. Daenerys and Rhaenys were the ones he saw most often when they were young children, but the days they were deemed ready for serious clothing collections came after they left the nursery and started seeing less and less of one another. Jon saw Rhaenys the most after that, and had been in her chambers a few times, but it’s not as if he often got up close and personal with many silks or velvets. Jon honestly always felt a certain sense of pride in how his mother and sisters seemed to eschew such fripperies, avoid such extravagances when there were people in the city who couldn’t afford shoes. 

One day, when he was in a sour mood, he even went so far as to make a snide comment about his half-sister’s gown collection at a family lunch. “Consider all the treasury funds that have gone toward ladies’ brocades over the years that might have been spent on bread for the hungry,” he remarked, “I sometimes wonder why some ladies need so many new dresses so often when others seem so content to go without them.” He nodded at Lyarra when he said this, but to his surprise, she didn’t look flattered. Indeed, she and everyone else looked furious.

Lyanna immediately grabbed her son by the arm and led him to, of all places, the stables. In particular, her personal one.

Queen Lyanna was passionate about horses, utterly obsessed. And Father had been generous in indulging this for years, gifting her with magnificent animals, and even constructing her own personal stable to house them all, along with the steads belonging to her children and nephew. Rhaegar marched Jon right to the middle of the barn, amidst the half-dozen animals in their pens, and gestured around at them all.

“Why would I need more than one horse?”

Jon stopped short and thought carefully. “One for hunting and one for the city streets?”

“Supposing that’s correct, that’s two steads and I have six. You and Danny both have three. Do you think they come cheap? A horse costs far more than a dress, I’ll have you know.”

Before Jon could respond, Mama grabbed his arm and marched him off, of all places, to the royal armory. It was one of Jon’s favorite places in the palace. He adored being around so many shining, powerful-looking weapons and suits of armor. 

“How many swords are in here, exactly? How many axes? Spears? Halberds? Maces? Dirks? How many helmets and breastplates?”

“I-I--” Many times, he’d tried to count, but Ser Arthur would always shoo him and Robb out before they managed to finish.

“You have a fine collection, Jon. Far more than two swords, I’m certain. Yet you don’t have more than two arms. Greater warriors than you or I have honed their skills and won legendary conflicts with one weapon of regular, locally-forged steel and decades-old mail. But we have all this. And how many of your blades have you personally forged?”

“What?” 

Mother pursed her lips. “Do you think I’ve engaged in any blacksmithing, Lad?”

“No, why?”

“Right.” Mother looked dead into Jon’s eyes, the ones he’d inherited from her. Dark grey on dark grey. “Do you think our weapons, armor, and equipment are shabby? Do you think they cost nothing? Do we need so many, just for our use, when there are so many lowborn soldiers who have marched for their lords in worn-through boots and paper-thin shields? Do you need a new longsword for your next Name Day? For all we know, Braavos could attack us by then, and common men will be fighting to defend us with spears they fashions from their wives’ broomsticks. A shame that the treasury funds that went to Wolf Fang couldn’t have been spent on helmets for our foot soldiers.”

Wolf Fang was Jon’s favorite blade, given to him for his twelfth Name Day. Jon began realizing what Lyanna was getting at. Ashamed, he looked at his boots.

“You never took a hammer to Wolf Fang the way Rhaenys has taken her needle to many of her own gowns. Our weapons and armor are designed specifically to hurt people, to wage wars that will devastate innocents, no matter how righteous the cause. What blood has a brocade skirt ever done anyone? Why should you, your brother, or your father have so much fine martial equipment when, if a war comes, you’re the men least likely to be on the front lines?”

“Father fought Robert Baratheon face-to-face in the field,” Jon protests. He’d always loved that story. It had long been a dream of his to someday do something so glorious.

“Aye, and he had a ruby-studded breastplate and a fine Dornish stallion when he did. The thousands of other men who ran into the field and fought their enemies face-to-face did not. Our fine weapons and armor are crafted for us by our own smiths here in the castle. Rhaenys’s silks are often woven by common women, who fed their families with the coin they earned making a princess’s dress. How many people do you think got money to feed their families when your father and I bought Blizzard from Willas Tyrell?”

Blizzard was Jon’s favorite horse, a shining white stallion bred at Highgarden, where the heir to the Reach bred some of the best horses, falcons, and dogs in the world. 

“Do you think Blizzard cost as much as Rhaenys’s finest gown? If you do, you’re wrong. He cost more than seventy times any garment purchased for your sister. Or stepmother. Or aunt. You want to call the ladies of our family extravagant? The gifts we’ve given you have drained far more from the treasury than the royal wardrobe. And no one begrudges you that. You’re a good boy, and you’ll be a great warrior someday. We are happy to do it. But you have  _ no business  _ judging your sister about her gowns when you ride a shining white pure bred. You’re extravagant, Jon. The only difference between you and Rhaenys is that the things you’re given are called ‘glorious’ while the few pleasures women in this world are permitted are treated with disdain.”

Jon, four-and-ten at the time, cried outright at this, thoroughly ashamed of himself. It was humiliating, being nearly a man grown and wailing like an infant. He of course begged Rhaenys’s forgiveness once he’d dried his tears and composed himself, and never forgot it. Never looked down his nose at any well-dressed lady again. 

He’s glad for the lesson Lyanna taught him then, because he hates to think how he might treat Sansa if he still harbored such prejudices. Sansa has traversed dark, icy wilderness to deliver food to people who need it. She went without for years, clad in dark wools, leathers, and old furs, rationing her food to meager portions, personally crafting panes of glass for the gardens that would grow food in the winter. But the stupid boy who so callously insulted his sister that day years ago would have ignored and forgotten that, looked down on her because now she glides throughout the castle and gardens in satin and lace, gems dangling from her neck, ears, and wrists. She’d been passionate about fashion and sewing before winter, and still is. 

In fact, the only things that shine brighter than her new diamonds are her eyes sometimes when she arrives in something he hasn’t seen before. He’s spied her twirling rapidly in the halls to watch her fine skirts flair and fly out around her when she thought he wasn’t looking, like a little girl. It’s adorable.

Too adorable. And that’s the problem. Sansa’s stunning in anything, as she proved with her sand-beaten, sunburned, leather-clad arrival. But there’s artistry to all the ways she dresses now. There are new things to discover with each new fabric, cut, and bauble. 

She’s indescribably lovely, and soft-looking, and clean, and fresh, and young, and appealing. Looking at her makes his fingers itch to touch her. It’s not just how she looks, it’s how she sounds, how she smells. She’s experimented with many different perfumes, but there’s always that underlying scent that clings to her, whether she’s wearing a cologne of roses, vanilla, or cinnamon. Jon can hear the rhythm of her heart beat, can hear her every delicate breath. It’s all darling. It all makes him want more and more. It’s as agonizing as it is beautiful.

Sometimes, a base part of him, probably a stupid, delusional part, thinks she’s not just dressing up because she likes it. That she does it also to look good for  _ him.  _ She does look particularly delighted whenever Jon sees her in a particularly stunning ensemble. Maybe, just maybe, she…

… But before Jon can go too far with such an idea, one of the mirrors that appeared in the castle when she arrived, will catch his eyes. He’ll see his hideous reflection and remember. No, no, of course not. For all he knows, she may want to please him out of fear of what he’ll do if she doesn’t. If not, then her wardrobe has nothing to do with him. It’s just for her, and her alone. Hell, even when he was a human, he probably wouldn’t have been enough. He’d never been as handsome or charismatic as his father, or Ser Jaime, or even Robb. As a beast, though?

Any affection she may have developed towards him is in spite of what he is. And it will never be enough to make her see him the way he sees her. She just loves pretty things.

Thinking that in another life, her finery might have made him scowl and judge her turns his stomach. Truly, anything that brings her joy and distracts her from the things that bring her to tears is a blessing. And Jon can’t help but admire the spirit and strength of a person in her situation, no matter how sartorially-inclined, who could find such joy in anything. Jon has spent years and years running in response to his situation. Sansa has never run. She twirls. She finds her joy where she can.

And Jon finds that now that she’s here, he’s learning this strength as well. After years of being unable to do anything but run, brood, and try not to think, he can stand still. He can sit still. He can think without feeling miserable. He finds his joy and his voice. 

If only he were strong enough to use it in a way that counts. In a way that might convince her to use hers freely. Tell him all the things she’s clearly afraid to tell him. After all the courage she’s shown, he’s more than due to show some of his own, be the first to confront uncomfortable topics. Surely he owes her that by now.

Maybe he’ll never be able to give her the comfort she deserves, but he should at least try, surely. That matters. It just does. But he doesn’t know what he’ll do if she turns away from him.

In this tiny world they live in now, she’s all he has.

One evening, Jon makes a resolution to himself. He will ask her about her family tonight. Not at dinner, but after, when they usually start their lesson. He’ll be brave. He’ll say something that frightens him.

But at dinner, she arrives in this beautiful mint-colored silk with her hair pinned up with ringlets falling becomingly about her face and neck, and she’s smiling.

“I’m excited for tonight,” she tells him as she takes her seat, “I think this is the one where you’ll finally get the soft H combinations down. I really do. Ooh! Lobster Bisque!”

And it’s too much. He can’t. His nerve drains from him as they eat. She’s just so happy tonight. He can’t make her cry. How dare he do such a thing?

Cowardice, surely. These are excuses for his cowardice. He has to. He has to finally speak up. If he doesn’t say something he’s been afraid to say tonight, he never will. Never. He has to be brace. He must.

They finish eating and adjourn to the library. When they take their seats, Sansa gives him a curious look. “You were especially quiet during dinner. Is there something wrong?”

Jon looks at her sweet face.  _ I have to be brave. I must. She deserves courage. But I can’t make her cry! Not tonight, when she smiles so. She probably twirled about in her bedchamber to watch those minty skirts dance before she came to dinner. She’s been excited for tonight. I can’t ruin that. But I can’t be a coward anymore. I can’t. SEVEN HELLS, JON, STOP STAYING SILENT ABOUT THINGS BECAUSE YOU’RE AFRAID TO SAY THEM! STOP BEING A COWARD! YOU HAVE A VOICE AGAIN, SHE’S GIVEN IT BACK TO YOU! YOU’RE STILL GOING TO BE CRAVEN WITH IT?! SAY SOMETHING! SAY SOMETHING THAT SCARES YOU! SPEAK! SPEAK! _

He takes a deep, shuddering breath. “I’M IN LOVE WITH YOU! PLEASE MARRY ME!”

Jon doesn’t say this, really. He’s a beast. He roars it, with a rough, angry voice that thunders and shakes the chandelier. Aside from the tinkling of the crystal shards of the light fixture, there’s silence following this. It takes Jon several moments of watching Sansa’s face turn as red as her hair to realize what he’s said. 

Well, that wasn’t what he intended at all. But it’s certainly something that terrifies him. At least with Sansa’s homesickness, he’s been brave enough to think about it at length. But this? Every time he’s let his mind stray to the true nature of his feelings or fantasies of them being together, he’s shouted himself down. At least having a healing conversation about Sansa missing home was in the realm of possibility. But to even consider a proposal of this nature was mad. He’s a monster. A hulking, clawed, unsightly freak. Not even human. He’s pretty sure it’s impossible that they could marry, given the fact that he’s switched species. Even if Sansa pitied him enough to agree, she probably couldn’t live up to it. Even if he turned into a man again, they’re trapped here, alone. They have no witnesses. And even if they left this place and rejoined the world, Jon doubts Aegon would ever let them. He is too spiteful.

Marriage? Really? And ‘in love’... Gods. Animals aren’t supposed to be in love with humans. Is that what he’s calling his lust? Aegon sent her here to be Jon’s ‘mate’, sadistically counting on Jon to kill and/or rape her. Any attraction or desire from him was exactly what Sansa came here dreading. The only reason she’s been able to befriend him is because of his assurances that he would never dream of… that… Jon can practically hear ‘The Bear and the Maiden Fair’ playing in her head right now. He is, after all, black and brown and covered with hair. 

He’s mad, and now she knows this for sure. He was supposed to try and comfort her about her emotional toils, instead he’s propositioned her with his own stupid, unnatural desires. There’s literally nothing he could have said that would have been worse than this.

Sansa looks at her lap. “I… I’m sorry, Jon, but I can’t. I simply can’t.”

“I know,” he says, his voice now a quiet rumble, “I know that, of course. I’m so sorry. I’m ashamed, I am. It’s nothing you should apologize for. I don’t know what came over me, that I should say such a thing. I mean, I do love you. But there’s nothing to be done with that. And I won’t do anything with it, of course. What I said to you the day you came is true. You shall never have to fear me, I swear it, Sansa. But… But if this frightens you still, I understand. Maybe… Maybe you’re right to. I don’t know. I wish you had a choice in being here. I want that more than anything, your freedom. I want that even more than I want to be a man again. I wish I knew a way…”

He trails off, now staring at the floor, tears cascading from his eyes and staining the plush crimson carpet. 

“...You did it.” She sobs this sentence.

“Did what?” He asks miserably.

“The sounds. All of them. The hard and soft consonants, the long and short vowels, the M’s, N’s, B’s, and V’s. The H’s. The other combined consonants. ‘ _ Pl _ ease’, ‘ _ sw _ ear’, ‘under _ st _ a _ nd _ ’, ‘ _ fr _ ightens’, ‘bei _ ng _ ’. And all the H combinations. ‘ _ Sh _ ould’, ‘ _ th _ at’, ‘ _ ch _ oice’... All of them. Nothing dropped, drawn out, muddled. You said everything perfectly.”

Jon’s eyes widen and he slowly raises his head. She’s right. No pronouncing every M as ‘muh’, no dropped H’s. No slurring. He hadn’t even accidentally spit as he spoke. And her tone… She’s sobbing, but she doesn’t sound afraid.

His gaze reaches her face, and she’s wearing a proud, yet sad smile.

“I… I did.” 

Then she does something incredible. She rises from her chair and races toward him. Before he knows what’s happening, she flings herself into his lap, wrapping her arms about his neck and pressing her face to his chest.

“Jon, I’m so proud of you! And I do love you, even if I can’t love you the way you wish. I do. I do. I love you.”

She’s in his lap, pressed against him, soft and warm and sweet and oh, how he longs to close his arms about her and hold her even closer. But he could crush her. Scratch her. She’s probably expecting him to embrace her, probably wondering why he won’t.

“Sansa, I don’t want to hurt you,” he tell her, tears leaking from his eyes, “I want so badly to hold you but if you were hurt, I’d never forgive myself.”

“It’s alright,” she whispers gently, looking up and stroking his cheek, “I can just hold you. Is that alright?”

He nods, overcome, arms determinedly fixed to reach outwards, away from her delicate form.

“You’re such a wonderful man,” she says quietly, “I don’t want to leave.”

Somehow, he finds that it’s easy to ask now. “But what of your family? I… I hear you cry at night. You miss them.”

She hesitates, then looks away, her cheek pressed against his chest. “Yes, I want to be with them, of course. I miss them terribly. I long to be back at Winterfell. But at the same time, I don’t want to leave you. Does that make sense? The only way I’d want to leave here would be if you could come with me. Or I’d like to bring them here. Or… Or something.”

He now realizes the other reason he was afraid to bring this up to her: he was afraid of hearing the exact opposite of what she’s just said. He’s always assumed (correctly at first, no doubt) that she wanted to leave. But to hear her say it out loud… That would be a dagger in the heart.  _ Selfish,  _ he thinks.

“I think I understand,” he tells her, “I feel the same way.”

“Please understand,” she murmurs, “It’s not your fault. It wasn’t your fault that I was forced here, that I left my family. And I don’t want to leave now because of you. The pretty rooms and gardens and dresses… they’re fun and sweet, but I’d leave it all behind at once if given the chance to be with my parents and siblings again. Some of my happiest moments were curled up with my brothers and sister in a my old, shabby, itchy wool dressing gown. Mushing in the bitter cold with my sister. I had some of my warmest moments in the dead of winter. No silk will ever be as soft and fine as Rickon’s curls. No jewel will ever shine like Arya’s smile. No alabaster and marble halls will ever seem as strong and fine as those of Winterfell. It’s just you. You’re the reason I don’t want to leave. You’re the dearest, kindest, most understanding friend I’ve ever had, besides Lady. I love you so very, very much, Jon. But I just can’t…”

“Shhhh,” he says, finding a moment of pride in making the sound, “Of course you can’t.”

There’s silence for a while as she holds him. He stays perfectly still. He wonders when she’ll fall asleep. She hasn’t yet, he can tell by her breathing. He wonders, though, what he’ll do if and when she does.

“...Jon?”

“Yes, Sweetling?”

She looks into his eyes again, fearful. “I have to tell you something, but I’m afraid.”

“Don’t be,” he assures her.

Sansa does something odd then. She squeezes him tighter for several seconds, as if they’re making a sort of long goodbye. “Jon, it’s my fault.”

“What?”

“It’s my fault all this happened to you. I’m an awful, terrible person.”

_ Has she gone mad?  _ “What are you even talking about?”

Sansa pulls back, closing her eyes briefly to compose herself. “I’ve told you about how things were growing up, right? How I had to be perfect and how hard my septa was on me? How I was judged?”

“Yes.” Oh, how he wishes he could stroke that red hair of hers.

“There was a reason for that. My family… we were almost completely ruined by the rebellion. We always lived in fear that we’d never recover from the damage done to us by it. We were impoverished, outcasts outside the North, we’d dropped in standing. Robb was taken from us and the only reason we weren’t all killed is because your father loved your mother so. And my parents… They were so, so afraid that something would happen that would end us. That something would happen with Arya and I that would end us. Or put us in danger. They let Septa Lorraine treat us like she did because they… They didn’t want us doing what your mother did.”

Jon winces. That does hurt, but still… “I don’t see how that makes it---”

“---I’m not done. I always knew that, to some degree. Yes, your mother’s influence was the reason we weren’t killed, but we were… Well, we were only in that position in the first place because she ran off with your father! My grandfather and uncle lost their lives, as did so many Northmen. We had Robb taken from us. My parents struggled so much, were so afraid, so miserable. Their son was gone, and their prospects were minimal. Their friends were dead. And if one more thing went wrong, we could all end up the same way.

“And, well… You know… You know how hard I worked to be what my parents needed me to be. What they wanted. To be a perfect lady, perfectly behaved, accomplished, gentle… It was never, ever enough and it was just so hard, Jon. The thing that kept me going, though, was that if I did everything right, if I was the perfect lady they needed me to be, that then at least I’d make a great marriage and help restore my family and it would be alright. I’d have proven to everyone at last that I wouldn’t let them down or endanger them. For the first thirteen years of my life, that was all I knew. And I knew why things were so hard, we were paying for what Lyanna did, that our only hope to recover might be for me to make a great marriage. And, as time went on, I began to wonder why, despite how much work had obviously gone into making me the perfect bride, my parents weren’t entertaining any offers.”

She pauses to shudder. “I asked, and I got an answer: I would never really make a great match, ever. Despite how beautiful I was, despite how well-behaved I was, despite how hard I worked, the best I could ever hope for was some minor lord. The major Houses were still afraid to associate with former rebels and, on top of that… People thought Stark girls were tainted. Lyanna fled the grand, important match she was supposed to make to be with a married man and sparked a war. So people thought Arya and I would likely be the same. That we were indecent. And it was just so… so unfair! I thought about how hard things were and how no matter what I did, it meant nothing. I didn’t matter. I would languish with whomever would have me. All my efforts for nothing. Meanwhile, your mother, who had caused a war, who committed adultery, helped your father humiliate Elia, abandoned her family, broke her vows… She was living in the capital as a queen, with a king who adored her. I’d never have a chance to be someone, to marry well, get what I wanted, worked so hard for my whole life. All my struggle, fear, shame, patience, work was all for nothing. Your mother got rewarded with everything I’d ever wanted because of what she did while I was condemned for it.”

Jon stops breathing. Hearing all this is agony, and he knows, deep down, where this is going. And he can’t stop it. Still, he begs inside his head for this to stop.

“And all the resentment I’d carried since I was small just boiled over until I… I just plain hated her. Loathed her. And I wanted her to pay. For her to suffer for what she did, instead of us, for once. I wanted something truly awful to happen to her. A few weeks later… the Gods granted my wish.”


	5. Family: Failure, Progeny, and Failing Your Progeny

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon and Sansa make some breakthroughs, and the kitchen is silent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait guys (had a VERY tumultuous month).
> 
> Thanks to the incomparable mangomar!

Jon:

It’s not her fault. Of course it’s not her fault. He tells her as much as she sobs, but he finds his words- devoid of any accompanying physical gestures thanks to his claws- ring a bit hollow.

“I wouldn’t say it,” he says, “if it were not true. I still struggle with words, even if I’ve mastered them. I would not make the effort if I did not believe that.”

She looks at him, absorbing his logic, but apparently finding it wanting. “But don’t you understand, Jon? I loathed your mother. I despised her. You loved her and love her still. You’re living proof of the power hate can have. Do you honestly believe my feelings were so inconsequential?”

“That’s not exactly the word I’d use,” he replies, “I’ve seen the power hate can have, yes. But the power it has is what it can drive people to. There’s more to what happened to me and my mother than wishes and anger. Hate drove my half-brother to provoke Robb and I, that drew my mother in, got her killed, and it resulted in me triggering spells that were in place for years and years. I have hated and wished, with every fiber of my soul, for terrible things to happen to Aegon and my Uncle Viserys. They’re both ruling the seven kingdoms, all their goals achieved. Did you cast any spells on my mother? Did your hate drive you to act beyond your silent wish? No. What happened to Mother, Robb, and I was the result of bad decisions and years of Aegon’s resentment and hatred.”

“You think my ill-wishes were a momentary thing?” Sansa cries, pulling herself from Jon’s lap and standing, hands on her hips. Beneath the reddened, tear-stained cheeks and eyes, she seems practically offended. “Jon, that moment for me was just the tipping point. Me stepping off a cliff that I’d been striding towards for years. From my earliest memories, I knew that Aunt Lyanna had a strong influence on my life. What Millie told me that day about my marriage prospects was something I’d suspected for years and years. That Lyanna was the root cause of the harsh and unforgiving nature of how I was raised. Why I was always made to feel like I’d done something wrong just by existing, why I was found at fault for my sister’s rebellions, why I was never good enough, and was only ever defined by my failures. Why, despite the greatness of our lands, name, and rank, we had such dismal social standing, why Father and Mother were always worried and struggling. 

“They wouldn’t say it outright, of course, and neither could I. Because our very existence seemed to rest with Lyanna and her influence. But do you honestly think your half-brother and his loyalists were the only ones carrying such anger towards her all those years? What of the people who truly struggled, with more than just emotional injury and public humiliation? What of the people pushed to actual desperation? Most of my family is dead, Jon. I watched my father practically grovel to lesser men than himself and make soul-crushing compromises in order to negotiate agreements to keep his country functioning because of the reputation we had. Not once did I witness any sign of interest or concern from your mother, the queen. After making sure we weren’t butchered, she seemed to disappear. That was how I --how we- grew up, Jon. And it just… it kills me to say this, because I love you so, and I know how closely this is tied to you. You so love your mother, worship her memory, and-”

“The very events that brought your family to disgrace were the circumstances of my conception and birth.” Jon leans forward and buries his face in his claws. He thinks of the winter rose bushes that have been here since he arrived. He thinks of his mother’s smile as she would receive shipments of the blossoms from the North. 

“That’s not how I think of it. You were one of the only good things to come out of that mess, and of course it wasn’t just about your mother. She was a child, she was my age, when it happened. And-”

“My father was the celebrated prince who put her on the spot before all the nobles of Westeros, who chose to go about things in a way that made everyone see this as an abduction, who dishonored so many, who allowed his father to commit unspeakable acts. But Mother did neglect you, she had her own struggles. She was hated by many, and had to cling to Father’s favor because of her status at court, even if she never made an effort to improve her standing. She saw such socializing as frivolous, preferred to go riding and hunting instead of improving relations with courtiers. Thus her position remained contingent upon Father’s favor alone. She probably feared interceding on House Stark’s behalf too much might alienate him and further damage her reputation. But if Father might feel alienated by petitions upon House Stark’s behalf, it only proved that he refused to take responsibility for the situation he put them in. Neither of my parents took responsibility for it, for anything. They could and should have done more. They were selfish, and innocents suffered.”

There’s a long silence. Jon thinks of what he used to see in the looking-pool. There were times he envied the Starks, when he would watch all of the children huddle together in their forts of furs and pillows and sleep in a pile like the wolf cubs they were. Sometimes he’d watch Sansa and Arya drive their sled together, and they’d be in decent spirits, and it would seem like a real adventure. Jon had always dreamed of doing things like that; traveling the countryside to serve and help pockets of smallfolk. But then, sometimes, the girls would arrive to their destination to find they were too late: that many of the people they sought to save had already passed from hunger or exposure.

They were mere girls, saddled with so much responsibility and guilt. Given duties that should have been carried out by adults with more means. Even though they had been groomed for softer lives, they had donned leathers and faced all the blizzards and ice of winter to care for others, while still being made to feel guilty whenever a life was lost despite their efforts. All because there wasn’t enough.

It had been so easy to blame Aegon and Viserys alone, to direct all his anger at them for not sending support, but hearing about Lord Eddard’s desperate compromises struck a chord within him. 

How many of their difficulties during the winter might have been avoided if Lord Stark hadn’t been forced to give so much in negotiations? If he’d had a stronger position in the years leading up to the winter? The years when his queenly sister was alive and well and Rhaegar was king and in full possession of his faculties? 

“Jon, what if the reason you were cursed so extensively is because of all the hatred? Hatred I contributed to?”

“No,” Jon says firmly, looking up into her eyes, “This is NOT your fault, understand? Please understand and believe me when I say that. You’re a victim of circumstances, as I am. We all feel guilty for things sometimes, it doesn’t mean we should. Sometimes I’ve blamed myself for what happened, I’ve always wondered if I truly did enough to reach out to my half-brother. If I had, maybe-”

“No! That’s absurd!” She leans over and clutches his face.

“It’s not as absurd as you blaming yourself because of an angry wish you made as a child,” Jon points out.

Sansa closes her eyes. “I still feel awful.”

“We both do.”

“Yes, but I... I should not have spoken of this. I don’t want to make you hate your parents. You have had so much taken from you. I feel like I am taking the memory of Lyanna and King Rhaegar  from you as well. ”

“No, only altered it.”

“For the worse.”

He can’t deny that, but he sighs. “It’s necessary, though. I should know the truth.”

“Why? What can either of us do with it?” Sansa pulls away and goes to retake her own chair. “We’re stuck here. How could we help or affect anything? What’s the point of hurting you with the truth when it truly changes nothing and only causes you more pain?”

Jon watches her curiously. In the many months she’s been here, she’s deflected any mention of her imprisonment and the negative toll it takes on her life. It’s obvious that she wished to spare his feelings; this is the first time since she arrived that she has alluded to the struggles of captivity.

And it’s all about his feelings and how she can’t help others. 

It makes him feel the impact of his parents’ failures all the more keenly. He loves Sansa Stark with all his heart, and she has been hurt by what they did. Her life has been shaped by it almost as much as his has. She just doesn’t have it written into her flesh.

Jon knows what she means, too. His abandonment of the looking pool has been oddly therapeutic in some ways. Watching the outside world, particularly the effects of Aegon and Viserys’s scheming and cruelty, made him often howl with rage, striking at nearby trees with his claws, tearing into their trunks, ripping off their branches. This was happening and he could do nothing. Whenever he had one of his fits, he’d tear apart the weirwoods, maples, and oaks that surrounded him, reducing them to torn up husks, only to watch as Oberyn’s magic reconstructed  them before his eyes. 

That never helped.

Perhaps it’s even worse for her, given how proactive she was during the winter. She was driving wolf sleds and designing glass gardens before she came here.  _ And what was I doing, before this?  _ He was young, sure, but so was she. He was training, dreaming of knighthood and glory, comfortably sheltered, educated, and provided for. Granted, part of that was his parents, who feared animosity towards Mother would make him a target should he travel too far and without guards. 

Jon always worked hard, striving to prove himself but he feels so idle, really...and Sansa...

She truly enjoys much of what their prison has to offer, including, he likes to believe, his company. Having to brave the grime of the Northern Winter hasn’t killed her enthusiasm for frills and satin. It’s almost artistic, the way she goes about it. Then there is the never-ending, custom scenery. There’s a portion of the castle gardens she’s carved out for herself. She’s had to fight the magic a bit until it learned to let her plant seeds and tend to them until they grew instead of just sprouting bushels of whatever plant she was thinking of amidst her garden. She has taken to designing glass structures again, though she lets the magic construct them instantly from what she draws. 

And though she does not join Jon and the wolves on their “mad runs”, as she calls them, she loves exploring.

Still, she yearns for home, and as close as she and Jon have become, her family cannot be replaced.

The worst part is that she obviously feels some sort of guilt over this, as if it’s somehow selfish, unkind, or insensitive to his feelings. Despite the fact that he’s an enormous wolf-man-beast with giants fangs and ember-like eyes, she treats him like he’s made of glass. 

“It hurts me more to think of you hiding things from me,” he says, looking into her eyes. “ I have noticed, Sansa, before tonight, that you hold back. I am hurt either way. You are the only person I have left, I am the only one you can really speak to. And I want you to. We may be the only people ---in a sense-- that we’ll have for the rest of our lives. And we have no idea how long those could be. For all we know, the magic here could sustain us for centuries. And I love you, Sansa, as I have loved no one else. To think of you concealing things from me… the worst thing I can imagine is you being afraid of me in any way.”

“I’m not afraid of you! I’m afraid  _ for  _ you!”

“Is that really so different? I grew up amongst a family that refused to speak plainly to one another, who let resentment simmer. I took part in that, and it ended in disaster. I don’t want us to do that. I… I don’t want to live as if there’s no hope for freedom. Maybe we’ll never leave this place, but I want to live as if we will, and that means being prepared for the outside world if and when we join it again. In order to do that I need to know these truths, especially the harsh ones. I want these things to matter, because that means we have a future.”

She clasps her hands in front of her chest, a sad, proud smile wetted by her tears. “You’re right.”

Too many have suffered because of his parents’ irresponsibility.

“Sansa…”

“Yes?”

“If we ever find a way to break this curse, would you marry me then?”

There’s a long silence. “I… I don’t know. I do love you, Jon. But I’ve only ever truly known you like this. Perhaps, but I can’t be sure who you are as a man.”

“So no, then,” he says glumly. 

“No! I mean- I may. I probably would. I just… I can’t be sure how much of an alteration that would mean for you.  What if upon becoming a man you lost all memory of your time as a beastman, and no longer knew me? What if you decided you didn’t want me anymore-”

“That’s nonsense.”

“I don’t want to assume.”

“Assume I truly love you.”

She steps back and smiles slightly. “I will. Goodnight, Jon.”

~_~_~_~_~_~

Sansa:

All the fancy, mysterious soaps and oils in that absurd bathroom couldn’t make her feel as clean as Jon makes her feel in the weeks following her confession to him. 

It seems once he’s mastered speech in its entirety, he can’t stop talking, and she’s glad of it. As well as they’d managed to communicate through their invented language of hand movements and sounds, there was always an element of embarrassment that clung to every interaction. She could tell by his eyes that it wasn’t enough for him, and that he felt a sharp reminder of his inhuman physiology every time they used it. But once the common tongue echoes from his mouth without a dropped consonant or slighted vowel, he glows with pride. 

As does she. It’s not just Jon’s assurances that she is blameless in his misfortunes, but that she has done something to make it right to some extent. She’s given him back his voice and, in one way at least, made him a man again. 

He tells her about Aegon, growing up with him, giving up on him. His doubts, his own guilt. It makes Sansa feel more relieved, even if Jon’s guilt is absurd. When she tells him so, he looks into her eyes and says, “It is less absurd than your own, my lady. I at least was present for these events. You blame yourself over an angry thought you had thousands of miles away.”

He’s downright indignant about this. 

They’ve made little places for themselves --- the library, a little marble pavilion overlooking the gardens, the center of the hedge maze. They spend this lazy afternoon on the patio, taking tea as Sansa combs the thistles from Lady’s fur. 

It amazes her how easy this is now that he can speak and she’s made her confession. She never spoke of her guilt over Lyanna and Jon to her family. She trusted Arya with her life when they went on their wolf sled expeditions, but she never felt comfortable telling her sister of this. Odd, really. In some way, secrets and guilt could seem more precious than life itself, mostly because they tend to define whatever life you end up having, and are often the deciding factor in whether you live at all. 

She probably never would have told anyone, if not for her seclusion with Jon. She was every bit as afraid to tell him as she was with her family, but it was still different. Jon is directly affected by the misfortunes Sansa wished upon his mother; Arya is not. There was a moral imperative to tell Jon. He’s the one she felt accountable to. 

Morals trumped fear. 

Sansa tells Jon as much. “It took me so long to overcome that fear, granted. And for that fear to diminish. So perhaps I am a coward after all, but something about you mastering speech pressed me to it.”

“I don’t know about cowardice,” Jon replies, gingerly grooming Nymeria in the same manner as Sansa. Well, almost. With his claws, he has to keep his actual hands at a distance and be ever so exacting. But as with speaking, it’s something he’s mastered more and more. Since she arrived, he’s tried to join her in various tasks and activities, or at the very least observe her at them. 

He continues, “The fact that your impetus was me regaining the ability to properly express myself speaks well of you. Besides, is it really craven to wait on taking action until you better understand the situation? Perhaps if I’d done that, I wouldn’t be in this situation.”

“None of that,” she snaps, irritated. “How were you supposed to ‘better understand’ that situation, exactly? Aegon had been taunting and provoking you for years. Everyone knew it. Nothing was done. You spent years enduring it, and at best, the consequences were your brother being ordered by his mother to mumble an insincere apology. You acted on impulse, yes, but only after years of putting up with that behavior. And while losing control did hurt you, it wasn’t because you ‘didn’t better understand the situation.’ Quite the opposite, in fact. Your familiarity with Aegon is what ultimately pushed you over the edge. It’s not as if it were merely a matter of empty words, either. Aegon was the future king. As king, his response to being denied the rights to my person was to send me here, expecting you to rape, kill, and/or eat me.”

Jon flinches and Sansa tries to give him a reassuring look. “That’s what he hoped for, because he’s the real monster. Your actions were misguided and impulsive, yes, but they were built on years and years of nothing being done. That was what created that situation, not you.”

“Not you, either.”

Both of them get indignant towards one another on the other’s behalf. Sansa is affronted that Jon blames himself for Aegon, and vice versa. They get all of the emotional catharsis of argument, which all leads up to affirmation. Not just the affirmation of being told they’re not at fault, but the comfort of knowing someone loves them enough to get upset and vehemently argue on their behalf. And that said loving person is intelligent and ethical, with arguments as sound as they are passionate. It’s quite therapeutic.

Her guilt does seem absurd, when filtered through Jon’s perspective. She only hopes he feels the same way about her reassurances.

“Still, perhaps you should have spoken to someone about it,” Jon muses. He gets the last thistle out of Nymeria’s coat, then gestures for Shaggydog to come and take his litter-mate’s place. 

“I should have confessed, yes.”

“No, that’s not what I mean. Well, I suppose, in a fashion, but not in the fashion you’re framing it with. I mean that you’d probably have felt far less guilty when you found out how much the others felt exactly the same way.”

“What?” She pauses in her work.

Jon sighs. “From what I’ve seen, and what you’ve told me… You can’t have been the only one. Not even close. So many people suffered in many ways because of what my parents did, and they likely felt compelled to pretend otherwise because so much seemed to depend on my mother’s favor. Do you honestly think you’re the only one who wanted my mother to suffer consequences? Hell, I’m surprised it was only once. I doubt you were even the worst about it. Growing up around Aegon means I know a lot about how graphic and intense people can become in their resentment. 

“I wouldn’t be surprised if many people in the North wished far more specific and painful punishments on my parents, and far more frequently. Your family was probably harboring the very same sense of guilt after the disaster, imagining they were the only one. And if I’ve learned anything over the years, it’s that not speaking of unpleasant things often leads to far more unpleasant actions.”

It makes perfect sense. Sansa looks down at her lap and, consequently, into Lady’s gentle, yellow eyes. “I could have commiserated.”

“The onus of that is not on you, though,” Jon adds quickly, “especially if we’re going to argue that I’m not at fault for what happened. You were a child. It should have been your elders who fostered that communication. That was their responsibility, not yours. They failed you.”

“They failed  _ us, _ ” Sansa says, looking up again. She strokes Lady’s ears. “Just as their elders failed them, and so on and so forth. I wonder if all families are basically a long line of failure, progeny, and failing your progeny.”

“Probably. Though my family always manages to do so on a scale that is literally catastrophic.”

Sansa cringes. She always does when their conversations vere into this direction. She doesn’t like Jon having to speak ill of his parents. Flawed they may have been, they were still his mother and father. He still loves them, especially his mother. The fact that those rose bushes had been here well before her arrival is proof positive of that. And they still bloom as fiercely as ever. It’s so very wrong that he should shoulder this pain, when he’s at fault for none of it.

“The perils of ultimate power,” she replies, “failures get amplified, regardless of character or intent.”

Jon is silent for several seconds, seemingly lost in thought. Then he speaks again. “You know, if this spell is ever broken, I think I’ll be grateful for this curse.”

“Why?!” She’s aghast.

“Painful as it’s been, it’s forced me to see things I wouldn’t have otherwise. So many things would have gone unexamined if I weren’t here, in this form. I’ve recognized failures, and so, if I ever become a man again, and have children of my own, I’ll know best how to avoid those mistakes in rearing my own.” He sounds downright wistful.

Sansa’s heart aches. The longing in his voice, in his eyes.

Luckily, he quickly looks at her again and adds, “And while I avoid those errors, I’ll probably commit several new ones, thus failing my children in other ways.”

It’s a good thing Sansa’s grown so familiar with his voice, otherwise she wouldn’t have detected the humor with which he says this. That statement would sound devastating to the untrained ear.

But she knows him, so she chuckles. “I imagine many of the failures committed by parents are born from efforts to avoid the mistakes of their parents. And on and on it goes.”

Even her words might sound purely bitter to many. But people who have lived through a Northern winter or a traumatic physical transformation would understand. Sometimes tears just don’t suffice as a response to tragedy, and laughter is the only thing left.

Jon shakes his massive head and clears his throat. “Perhaps being a monster is more humane than being a man. All I do now is run, eat, sleep, and, most recently, speak. Not a lot of room to do much damage with that sort of lifestyle.”

“You could do damage, though, easily,” Sansa responds, “The fact that you don’t has more to do with your heart than your body. You are entitled to so much rage, have suffered so much hardship, and are afflicted with a body that is hard to control and designed for aggression. Yet you spend hours trying to ever-so-carefully de-thistle Shaggydog’s hair without hurting him while you comfort me over the ill fortune I wished upon your mother. Man or beast, you’re more human than most.”

Jon seems at a loss for words for a while. He just gazes at her. Then, finally, “I am glad you told me when you did, because I could express myself. My life as prince meant I encountered countless people, far more than most, many of whom treated me with disdain or hostility for being my mother’s son. You were affected by my parents’ actions more than most, and you never, ever took your resentment out on me. Not just Aegon, or any of the Martells, but literal crowds of people, high and lowborn alike. You barely thought ill of my mother, and you felt guilty for it. I know firsthand that there are dozens, even hundreds of people enthusiastic about taking their grievances out on any target they can, including the innocent. You’d be fully justified in barring your door against me and keeping away. Instead, you taught me how to speak again. You’re more human than most.”

Sansa flushes. Not from embarrassment or modesty, but from merely feeling… warm. Warm, whole, and good. She’s proud to be spoken of by such a person as Jon, let alone to this extent. The castle has provided her an ocean of silks and a mountain of jewelry, but this is the greatest treasure she’s discovered. 

There is a downside to this, though. As strong as her happiness is the backlash to it is just as intense. “When you say things like that, it makes me feel like I can save the world. It makes me want to try to, with you.” She tries to combat the tremor in her throat and clenches her fist. “But I can’t even  _ see  _ the outside world, let alone try to help it!”

She closes her eyes for a moment. “I’m sorry, I just… You and the wolves make it bearable, of course. But sometimes it’s only that. Especially at times like these. I see you, Jon, and you’re so  _ good.  _ You’re not just kind, but you’re strong and smart and passionate and considerate. And because of some accidents of magic and birth, you’re locked away while that toad of a brother of yours is king and there is nothing we can do about it! I feel so guilty for being oblivious to what is happening, and I want to know. At the same time, I’m afraid to, because no matter what I see, there’s nothing either of us can do!”

Jon gets up and walks over to her, his face desperate. “I know, and I wish so much that I could take you into my arms right now.”

Sansa rises. He can’t embrace her for fear of hurting her, but she can hold him. She puts her arms around him and rests her head against his chest. Even with his arms awkwardly held away, he’s so warm. She’s spent a lot of time cuddling wolves anatomically incapable of hugging her, and found it just as comforting as any human gesture. This is the same, really. Only Jon can also speak to her.

She once yearned for a comfortable, protected, pretty castle life. Now she has that. She has gowns and cushions and flowers and books beyond her imagination. And she finds that all those things are entirely unsuitable. Even during the darkest days of winter, enduring the sharpest winter winds, trying to drive her sled through the deepest snowbanks, she didn’t feel this helpless. She knew she could easily fail and die, but at least she’d die doing something. Not to mention, in those conditions, it was hard to spare the time, energy, or thought on any perceived impotence.

But she’s not on her sled anymore. There are no blizzards in Dorne. She’s draped in satin amidst a garden, magical barriers and a pack of wolves between her and any possible threat. Her companion is a fountain of deep, rewarding conversations that force her to examine her every circumstance. And unlike her winter rides, she can’t do anything. Sure, her efforts to combat the winter could have easily proven futile, but at least she could make an effort. Even a futile act is more comforting than being restrained from acting at all.

Still, Jon’s right, in a way. Things had to be confronted. She knows he means conversations should happen, but that goes beyond words. Ignorance might be bliss, but it’s merely a sweet-tasting poison. Jon was right that night in the library when he said they should believe in a possible future. That they should act as such. Avoiding knowledge of events beyond their little magical habitat is doing the opposite. She can’t do anything now, perhaps, but someday, she might, and if so, she owes it to those she loves to act with full knowledge of whatever situation she faces after the spell is broken. She’s impotent at the moment, but not seeking out information on what is happening ensures she’ll be impotent forever.

Seven Hells, she isn’t even sure how long she’s been here. Without other people, activity, or events, it’s almost impossible to keep track of time. The wolves don’t even shed their coats with the same regularity anymore. They’d all shed intensely on the journey from the North to King’s Landing, then from King’s Landing to this castle. But after that, nothing beyond some balls of knotted or dirty fur. 

She’d tried simply counting the days before, but it was so very depressing. She’s grown a little, but she can’t even be sure of how much since her clothing seems to adjust to fit her no matter what. Not to mention, she suspects that time works a bit different here. Some days and nights seem longer or shorter than others, and in no apparent pattern other than what seems to suit her best.

Though the pool has refused to let her see the outside world with her own eyes, she’s always had the means to work around that. Or, rather, she’s developed the means as Jon’s speech has improved. Even before he re-mastered the common tongue, he offered to communicate things through the crude language they’d developed as a substitute. He could see the pond, and he could tell her. But she’s avoided it. It just made the whole thing seem that much crueler.

The world is cruel, though. At least, it is on the outside of this magical bubble she’s been residing in, and she can’t justify her willful ignorance any longer.

Sansa takes a deep breath and pulls away. “Jon, I want to visit the pond. I want you to tell me what you see.”

He hesitates. “Are you sure, Sansa? You’re already frustrated enough…”

“I need to believe that someday, I won’t be helpless. And the first step to believing that is acting out of belief. I’ll never be able to face the world on the day this spell breaks if I have no idea what has happened beforehand.” She reaches up and runs a hand down his cheek. “Please, Jon. Take me to the godswood and narrate what the pool shows you.”

Jon sighs. “Very well.”

He offers her his arm and escorts her through the gardens, past Lyanna’s rose bushes, to the godswood. The wolves follow. They reach the Heart Tree and the pond beside it almost at once, and kneel down at the bank.

“Where would you like to look first?” Jon asks, gazing into her eyes.

“Winterfell, of course.”

“Yes, but what part of Winterfell? Or at who? If I don’t get specifics, I’ll just see-”

“The castle walls from afar,” Sansa says, her voice shaking. “About three hundred yards away, from the vantage point of atop an eastern hill so that you can see the full stretch of one end of the fortress to another.”

Jon’s breath hitches and slowly, he turns his gaze from her face to the pond, then back to her. “You can see-”

Tears run down her face. Gods, how many times has she tried? How long did it take her to finally give up hope that the pool would show her anything? For so, so long, no matter how much she strained her eyes, concentrated, and pleaded with this thing to reveal itself to her, the surface of these waters always stayed maddeningly empty. More than once, she’d pled with it like a peasant begging a cruel king for mercy, but all she ever saw was her own tear-stained face staring back at her.

But now, there it is. She sees it all: the walls, the turrets, the south and eastern gates and the roads leading to them, the Stark banners flying high atop peaked roofs and hanging on either side of the gate. She sees people going in and out. She even hears one of the guards calling for the portcullis to be raised so man with a donkey-pulled cart can drive through. She looks at it all from the very same vantage point that she had so many times as a girl. She even knows which hill she’s viewing all this from. 

Consumed with wonder and longing, Sansa tentatively reaches out and prods the water with a fingertip. The surface and the image ripple, but her home remains. She can barely breathe.

It’s been so, so very long, she realizes. Much longer than she thought. Even this distant view makes her heart ache. Gods, she can almost smell the freshly baked bread from Milda’s kitchen-

And, instantly, she goes from  _ almost  _ smelling the bread to  _ actually  _ smelling it as the picture of the castle dissolves into one of the castle kitchen itself. She watches in amazement as the cooks, maids, dishwashers, and pages bustle about. She hears the clanging of pots and pans, the grunts of the workers, their footsteps, doors opening and closing. 

She’s looking at it all from yet another familiar vantage point. She remembers times her Septa brought her down to the kitchens to teach her about running a household. The first time they went, Sansa was five. Milda, the sharp-tongued, bony cook lifted her and propped her up on one of the tables. Septa Lorraine had shrieked at such an unladylike position and reprimanded them both. Milda argued somewhat, then seemed to give up and return to her work as Lorraine went into one of her lectures. But as Sansa exited the kitchen, the woman slipped her a small piece of lemon cake wrapped in paper when Lorraine wasn’t looking.

“I know they’re your favorite, my lady,” the woman whispered.

As it turned out, Lorraine had more in that paper than pastry. She’d written on it a message to Sansa to sneak down whenever she wished, that more cake would be waiting for her.

Sansa didn’t go often, but whenever she did, it was thrilling. She felt as wicked as Arya. And every time she ventured down there, Milda, her normally beady eyes twinkling, would always lift her back up onto that table. If she didn’t have any cakes already baked, she’d hand Sansa a bowl of peas to shell while she made some.

Looking into the pond’s waters, Sansa can practically feel a bowl of peas in her lap.

Their cook was not the jolly, fat, warm figure Sansa had expected before meeting her. Milda was thin, dark-eyed, shrill-voiced and sharp-tongued. Curmudgeonly, really, and a vicious gossip. Sansa used to have to swallow guilty giggles while listening to the colorful insults that the woman would shower some poor worker when they made a mistake, or, when incompetence wasn’t available, providing vicious commentary on other people’s lives to her assistants. 

In fact, the only thing missing from this was the marked absence of Milda verbally skewering someone. It makes Sansa wonder, at first, if Milda is even in the kitchen. But then she sees the woman, kneading dough at her usual spot but… silently. Her dark hair has turned grey. Her wiry arms move slower than they used to.

Indeed, there is an unsettling lack of conversation in the kitchen. Why? In the kitchens, it wasn’t just Milda constantly talking. Down in the kitchens, no one had to mind their courtesies, so they didn’t. They said whatever was on their minds. But by their usual standards, the kitchen now might as well be the crypts in terms of silence. Sansa shivers.

Something is wrong, and for once, they’re not talking about it.

Sansa swallows and wonders about the guards. The main courtyard appears. And, as she feared, there are more than thrice the number of armed men there than usual.

An abundance of armed men never, ever meant anything good.

_ Aegon is king,  _ Sansa thinks. She pulls back from the pond.

“Sansa? Are… What’s there?”

“Something is very, very wrong, Jon.”

Jon clears his throat. “Seven Hells. So far I’ve just seen the castle, the kitchens, and the courtyard, but what did the pool show you?”

“The images are the same for me,” Sansa whispers, “But I see more in them, because I know my home. All those guards…”

“Are there…. Are there a lot?” He looks back at the pool. “I must confess that when I looked in on your family, I never really paid attention to how many you usually had. The number I see is no more than a typical patrol in the Red Keep.”

“There are far more than there should be. And the kitchens are quiet. No one is insulting anybody. Not even Milda.”

“...Milda? I thought your Septa’s name was Lorraine.”

“Milda’s the Head Cook. And she’s thin, because she’s always too busy using her mouth telling everyone what’s what to put anything in it. It’s the sacrifice one has to make when you’re the only person with a lick of sense,” Sansa explains, reciting Milda’s answer verbatim from when six-year-old Arya asked her why she wasn’t fat like a ‘real’ cook. “Nobody in those kitchens ever repressed themselves like our families did. Until now.”

She’s trembling.

“What… What do you think it is?”

Sansa closes her eyes and takes several deep breaths. “No idea. I just know that I’m terrified to learn what it is.”

“We don’t have to know now,” Jon says, “We can… We can stop here. Rest a bit, then come back. We don’t have to-”

“No.” Sansa opens her eyes and looks at the water again. The courtyard begins to dissolve. “I have to know. Now.”


End file.
